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Rice
is the most popular grain in the world, even
more than wheat. It is consumed by most of Asia
as the main staple and is used as a side dish in
Europe, Africa and America. Thus it is a
commodity with tremendous potential in world
trade. And Patna Rice can be a huge geographic
indicator with tremendous business potential.
For the purposes of all the readers, let me
explain the term Geographic Indicator or GI for
short. GI is used for produce of a particular
geographic area. For example Champagne for the
sparkling wine from the eponymous district in
France or Scotch for the whisky distilled in
Scotland. Near home, we have Darjeeling tea and
Basmati rice. Over a period of time, the term
gets associated with high quality and sells for
a much higher price than a similar produce from
another area. For example, world renowned
sommeliers admit on record that sparkling wine
from other areas is equally good, but Champaign
continues to demand a premium pricing. These
geographic indicators are guarded very zealously
and produce of other place cannot use the name.
Readers would recall the controversy over
Basmati rice that erupted a few years back and
the Government of India and Pakistan got
together to thwart the attempts of Texan farmers
to use the name. Thus now only the rice grown in
the foothills of Himalaya can be sold by the
name of Basmati rice. While it is commendable
that the Govt of India took this step for
Basmati, it is really sad Patna rice as a GI
continues to languish.
Like so many other good things from Bihar, I
myself was unaware of it till quite late in my
life. Though having been born and brought at
Patna, I heard about it for the first time in
Germany. For me it was a wonderful experience to
be associated with an exotic merchandise rather
than the patronising attitude that one faces
within India when one utters the word Patna.
To tell a little bit about rice, there are some
40,000 varieties of rice under the same
botanical species: oryza sativa. The most common
classification is by the length of the grain:
Long Grain, Medium Grain and Short Grain.
 Long-grain
rice, as the name suggests, is long and slender.
The grains stay separate and fluffy after
cooking. This is the best suited for rice served
as a side dish, or as a bed for sauces.
Medium-grain rice is plumper and the grain is
shorter. It is considered good for paella and
risotto.
Short-grain rice is almost round, with moist
grains that stick together giving it a gooey
appearance when cooked.
The terms "Indica" and "Japonica" could be taken
to mean "long grain and non-sticky" and "short
grain and sticky" respectively and represent the
two ends of the spectrum. The westerners, either
in America or in Europe including UK, find long
grain rice suitable for their style of cooking.
Within these broad categories there are
innumerable varieties and I would deal with some
of them in this article.
The western cook books usually mean American
long-grain rice when they refer to long-grain
rice. Carolina Rice is considered the best among
the American Long Grain. Intriguingly, rice is
no longer grown in Carolina. The name indicates
to a past when the British gentry wanted to
savour rice but found it rare and expensive.
Some British merchants dealing in Patna Rice
took the grain from India to Carolina which was
then a British colony and grew it there. They
made a rather decent job of it. To this day, the
best American rice is called Carolina rice
though its cultivation was ceased there at the
end of the American Civil War. Most of American
long grain in now grown in Arkansas, California,
Texas or Argentina and Brazil in South America.
When I recently did a search on Google for Patna
Rice, I was pleasantly surprised to find a very
large number of hits at fairly credible sources.
A similar search on Basmati rice had fewer
results and there were almost none for Dehradun
Rice or Doon Rice.
In Bihar, we use terms like Parimal or Rani
Kajal and Badshah Bhog for good quality rice.
However, a wonderful opportunity awaits us by
way of the name Patna Rice which has instant
recognition the world over.
In popular global perception, Patna rice has a
robust, long and narrow, opaque grain that keeps
its shape well for curries. It has a mild
fragrance and has been grown for millennia.
Basmati rice is found referred to as a close
relative of Patna Rice, having a nutty taste and
a stronger aroma.
Botanical.com describes Carolina and Patna rice
as “the most esteemed in England and the United
States. The grain of the first is round and
flat, and boils soft for puddings; the latter
has a long and narrow grain that keeps its shape
well for curries”
Website :
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/r/rice--15.html
Authentic “Patna” is considered the king of
rice. It is described as “The most expensive
long-grained Indian rice, aged for two years to
enhance its fragrance and texture. Worth the
extra money.”
Source:
http://gourmetclub.signonsandiego.com/20030129-9999-rice.html
Westerners erroneously do not differentiate
between Carolina Rice and Patna Rice and use the
term interchangeably. Please see website :
http://www.harvestfields.ca/CookBooks/001/04/27.htm
American long-grain (which includes Carolina
rice) has a somewhat bland flavour. The
popularity could be due to the price and
availability since long grain from India is
rather rare and expensive. The situation should
be considered analogous to Wine. While Wine from
say Napa Valley is quite good, it is not quite
the same as the wine from France.
Patna rice is considered the best for use with
curries. (http://funkymunky.co.za/currytips.html)
The craving for genuine long grained rice with
decent flavour that a westerner feels can be
gauged from the question put up by an expatriate
British in Thailand:
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=44562
Observe the surprise of a gourmet when he finds
the rice he is served is authentic Patna “It's
really Patna!"
http://www.montrealfood.com/restos/bistroavenue.html
There are so many legends that exist around
Patna rice that a nice story can be woven around
it.
The earliest written reference to the rice grown
near Patna is in the Buddhist literature at the
time of Gautam Buddha himself. Rice gruel is
referred to as offerings to Lord Buddha when he
went around asking for daily alms. Reference can
also be found about varieties of rice being
superior and inferior quality.
There is reference to the rice from the region
in the travelogue of Hiuen Tsang, the seventh
century Chinese traveller to India. He spent
considerable time at Nalanda. He was served a
strain of Patna rice called Mahasali rice. He
describes it as “grain was as large as a bean,
and when cooked, was aromatic, and shining like
no other rice”
Source :
http://www.indiasite.com/bihar/nalanda.html
Yet another reference to the rice of Patna is in
Ain –I-Akbari written by Abul Fazal, the court
historian of Mughal king Akbar. He collected
various strains of rice grown around Patna and
reported that even if one grain of each strain
was taken, it would fill a large vase.
Europeans took to the rice of the region in a
big way in the seventeenth century. Fortunes of
several merchants were built by dealing in Patna
rice. The most celebrated is the case of William
Fullarton of Skeldon UK. Having made his fortune
by dealing in Patna Rice, he returned to the UK.
He started a coal mining business in Scotland.
He felt so obligated to Patna that he named the
hamlet he built for his miners as Patna. To this
day, this town in East Ayrshire, Scotland is
called Patna.
Source:
http://www.east-ayrshire.gov.uk/comser/my
area/patna.asp
There was a town in US also which was called
Patna but the name has now been changed. I have
not been able to authenticate whether that also
has a rice connection, but I suspect it would be
so.
Since at one time, most of the rice sold in
Europe came from this region, Patna Rice is also
sometimes loosely used to mean any long grain
aromatic rice.
Let me end with a poser: What can we as a
community can do to unlock the value of this
goldmine of a Geographic Indicator? Can we
attempt to come up with an action plan?
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