Black rice that only Chinese emperor and family once ate

Most fellow Malayalis have an emotional bond with rice when it comes to food. Porotta may be their most preferred item in the new age, yet after eating three pieces of that layered flatbread made of maida, the average Keralite would need a morsel of that cereal grain boiled - as a capping. There are people who gets a headache by night if they haven't got some rice all day. That may be an extreme case, but even moderates are addicted to what they call choru. For us in the southern Indian state, rice comes in different colours: white, brown and sometimes even red.

To those familiar with these three, there is a fourth colour for rice. Black. Really? Yes. It may be alien in Kerala, but the world has it and fairly decent visibility on the dining tables.

During a visit to Canada and Quebec, one of that North American country's 13 provinces, one could see to their surprise the black rice, a variety of wild paddy. The grains are long, slender and dark, but then they are mixed with the white variety. Together, the meals are a bit smoky. The wild paddy is just a name and that the crop had nothing to do with forestlands. It's actually the seed of a kind of grass in the marshy stretches of that continent. That black rice was really costly, but then it also tasted great when eaten with frog legs fried in oil that also had dried chillies. The natives of Canada would devour them along with salads as well. Fry it, and they'd look like pop corn.

Forbidden cereal

The 'real' black rice is called 'forbidden rice', has medical qualities and was found in the medieval-era Oriental land of China, where the powerful in the coterie around emperor decided that he and his family alone should consume this cereal. It was a tactic to ensure that the general public won’t consume black rice. Of course, a more democratic Beijing today permits its citizens to eat black rice. Abroad, other south Asian countries, besides China, are cultivators of this grain.

A trip to a Northeastern state in India would enable you to eat this variety of 'real' black rice. In Manipur, you would get a violet gruel on your dining table as what looks like a sweet dish. It is their black rice which they call it chak-hao in local language. The cereal, boiled, isn't as soft as the usual variety of rice, but then it has a subdued fragrance. The grain is actually black; only that it acquires a violet hue on boiling. The Manipuri black rice takes at least four times more the time needed to boil the white variety. You can’t eat it as rice; this cereal is generally served as custard. A kind of dessert.

Health advantages

The black rice is more nutritious than the white variety. What lends it the black colour is anthocyanin, the same pigment that is present in fruits like grape and jamun. Anthocyanin-containing stuff shows up as violet, red or blue depending upon the level of acidity in the water it is boiled. It's a good antioxidant; consuming it can help the body produce vitamins A, B, and C. That way, the health-conscious new generation should opt for this cereal in a big way.

In the east of the country, black rice is cultivated in Assam and West Bengal as well. Far from those states, this cereal is available in the market. Supermarkets in metros and certain big cities sell black rice, which can also be ordered through internet. The price is roughly Rs 300 a kilo.

Ideally, this cereal can be boiled after immersing it for at least four hours in water. Well, how about a black rice payasam for Onam this year?