The Red Cloud chief., 1884-04-18
The Art Of Cooking Rice.

SIR: With your permission. l will
answer the question addressed to "F.'
about cooking rice. AS a rice planter,
1 am greatly interested in everybody's
knowing how to cook rice. Wheat and
rice are the only two grains consumed
exclusively by man. or nearly SO. of
corn, oats, barley, rye. etc, the great
bulk (even of that turned into liquor. a
sarcastic temperance advocate might
say) is consumed by beasts. The cOun-
try produces nearly ten bushels. or
three hundred quarts, of wheat per
capita. and scarcely one quart of rice;
vet. in spite of a considerable tariff on
rice. the prices per bushel of wheat and
rough rice are not far apart usually.
in 4 rice-growing country everybody
eats rice. and prefers it to bread. Ii a
stranger m among us mot too old
in a twelvemonth it is likely he will
show this pre- erence, and children in
variably acquire it. Yet out Of a rice
country nobody car eat it, except in
buildings. and the better he loves it the
less the born and bred rice-eater will
haze to do with i: there. A ''So'th
Car'linian" from Georgetown or Beau
fort. who eats rice always once, and
sometimes twice and thrice q day at
home. will hardly call for it . second
time at the best hotels of New York or
Long Branch. This is strange. but it
is still stranger that. even in the in
terror of South Carolina and Georgia,
rice is not eaten largely. while in the
upper portions of those States. except
10y low-county families. it is no more q
regular article of d eli than it is in Ohio
or Illinois. Why is this?
The explanation is to be found in the
cooking. and in that alone. Is it then
so hard to cook? By no means. On
thecontrary. the cooking is OF the very
simplest and easiest, so much so that
every negro girl of twelve or upward in
the rice country can cook it 10 perfec-
ton. though possibly she can cook
nothing else. In fact. the plantation
rice hands cook it very much better thar
YOU will find itcooked at the best hotels
in Charleston or Savannah. Now, ]
will tell you how 10 cook it. SO there
can be. | think, no mistake. am fond
OF camp hunting in the winter fire.
-Guently staying out on the river for a
week or ten days. and l always carry
rice because il is SO easy to keep and
difficult to injure, under the ordinary
conditions of camp life. when a sudden
shower or a leaky boat may ruin your
flour at short notice. Also, | always
carry Ned, a black man. who knows
how to cook rice. MANY and many a
time have l watched him at it by the
camp fire; but last winter, there having
been some discussion of it in the papers,
! took occasion INT day to observe Ned
with his rice, very closely, watch in
hand. Here is just what he did. how
he did it. and the actual time. except
of the last operation. which is not i'm
pOrtant. SO You give time enough-nOt
less than half al hour, and better, AZ
hour.
First. he poured q pint of rice into q
tin pan and picked it over carefully,
throwing out any foreign substances.
Then he poured into the pan some cold
water, washed the rice. poured the
water OF. and picked the rice again.
A second time it was washed and the
water poured off Then Ned put the
rice into an ordinary t%wo-quart sauce
pan. covered it to the depth of a half
inch with cold water. stirred in the salt.
fitted on the top carefully, and put the
saucepan on a quick fire OF Goals. and
went to his other work. In Just twenty
minutes Ned returned TO his rice and
removed the lid. 1t was done. but not
yet ready for the table. There was q
little water left, which was carefully
poured of; the rice was thoroughly
stirred from the bottom, not the top,
but tin plate was laid lightly on the
saucepan, and the saucepan set one side
an the hot ashes. where it remained
gerry stowiy ~steanainq one hour, or may
hap two. when the rice was SO dry that
You might eat it with your fingers, and
as the same time thoroughly done. and
soft through and through. NOBODY
can like raw rice, neither can any one
like it sogged with water by an hours
boiling and no steaming.-M Y. Eren-
tag Pos.