Wild Rice

Wild rice is not a true rice but a native annual grass that grows in shallow lakes, slow rivers and marshes of the upper Great Lakes and southern Canada. Northern wild rice, Zizania palustris, is the species harvested in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Ontario. To the Ojibwe it is manoomin, a sacred food central to culture and history, and hand harvesting from canoes remains a tradition across the region. Most commercial "wild rice" is now grown in diked, flooded paddies.

It is a cold-climate plant, not a tropical one. The seed must spend months cold and wet to germinate, which is exactly what a northern pond or lake gives it. Sow live, unparched seed after first frost into 1 to 3 feet of still or slow-moving water over soft mud; it sinks and waits under the ice. In spring it sends up floating ribbon leaves, then stands 3 to 6 feet above the water by midsummer. Without a pond, a stock tank or large tub at least 2 feet deep, with 6 inches of mud, works the same way if you keep it full. Seed that dries out at any point dies, so store it wet and cold until sowing.

The grain ripens unevenly in late summer. Harvest by bending the heads over a tub or canoe and tapping them, going over the stand every few days, and leave some to drop: it is an annual and reseeds itself. Harvesting from public waters often requires a state licence.