Culinary historian and 'The Cooking Gene' author Michael W. Twitty joins Kristen to talk all things rice.
Referenced in this episode:
Genius-Hunter Extra-Credit:
Special thanks to listeners Eva (@hummum), Beckie, and Laura (@loanddough) for sharing what makes your pots perfect!
Have a genius tip—rice-based or otherwise? Share it with me at genius@food52.com.
Kristen Miglore (voiceover): Hi, I'm Kristen Miglore, a lifelong genius hunter. For almost a decade, I've been unearthing the recipes that have changed the way we cook. Now on The Genius Recipe Tapes, we go behind the scenes with the geniuses themselves, and we get to hear from you.
This week, I'm talking with Michael W. Twitty, James Beard award-winning culinary historian, and author of the new book Rice. Michael's book intrigued me because even after decades of cooking rice, I still often make it plain and count entirely on the rest of dinner delivered on flavor, which may or may not arrive. And I still make a mushy, water-logged pot from time to time. But since I started cooking from Michael's book, none of that has been true. In this week's Genius Recipe on Food52, Michael’s Meyer Lemon Rice with Candied Garlic, every grain is drunk with flavor but completely hanging onto its integrity. Nothing is mush. Nothing is bland, and Michael's candied garlic is my new favorite sticky, crackly, sweet, savory way to make anything more delicious.
But here, he dotted it on top, specifically so that its sweetness would play against the bright, sunny lemon that just beams up from the pot. It would be excellent with chicken or chickpeas or fish or roasted vegetables, but it doesn't need any of them to do much. They don't need to bring fireworks of flavor. They can just show up. So that recipe from Michael's new cookbook and the video with him talking us through our all up on Food52 today. But here, you'll get to hear even more about how to play with recipes but still be true to their origins and how to create richness with what you have. Plus, how many Southern rice dishes have African roots through the farmers and cooks enslaved from the not coincidentally named Rice Coast of West Africa.
At the end of the episode, we will also hear from a few of our listeners how they cook their ideal pots of rice. And while it would be overly simplistic to ask about the perfect pot of rice, I think that what each of us chooses to exist within those boundaries comes with a lot of, as Michael would say, intention and attention and rich history. So we'll start there. Here's Michael on what he looks for in his ideal rice and how he gets there.
Michael Twitty: For me, it's about feeling. It's about how the rice feels in my hands dry and how it feels as it's being soaked and washed. And that's very controversial. But that's what several different rice cultures worldwide do; soak and wash and rinse the rice. Acknowledge how much moisture will be in the final product and how I want the final product to feel in your mouth. Does it taste right? Did it absorb the flavors? Basmati, Jasmine, long-grain, short-grain, Arborio, brown rice all have very different standards. I typically use long grain rice, which disappoints people because there are 10,000 plus rice varieties globally, and I use the most basic one. But I do that because of reliability. The way the rice plays with moisture, the way it gives you those defined grains on your plate and in your mouth that short-grain sticky rice would not. I don't use a rice cooker. I'm not good with math and numbers. My answer is pitiful, but I'm such a home cook in a traditional way. You learn to cook with your intuition, feelings, using your eyes and other senses.
I remember when I was at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and there was a woman from Uzbekistan. It was funny because we're in the kitchen together, and there was a translator for some things, but mostly it was me and her interacting the best we could. I think that was by design. There was a point where we both grabbed a towel and foil, and we crisscrossed each other to go to the pot. We were both going to put the cloth and foil on the rice! It was funny to us both because, given the fact we did not speak the same language and came from very different backgrounds, we still understood what rice needed to ensure it cooks correctly.
So I know that's a weird rambling answer to your question. But it's hard to write recipes from that standpoint and everything. That's why when people immediately ask for a recipe, I feel frustrated. I know that part of my responsibility as a food writer is to translate some of those ideas into formulas. But I see recipes as spells and not procedures. It's not easy.
Kristen: I love your answer because many home cooks and I strive to get to that point. Where we don't have to rely on recipes where we can eyeball the amount of the rice, the amount of the liquid, how long to wash it, how long to cook it. The recipe is a crucial learning step for someone who doesn't have the intuition and experience. Interestingly, you say you don't take to recipes and that you don’t work in recipes. Your book is full of great, straightforward recipes. Was that challenging for you to develop and test those?
Michael: Yes, it was a challenge. I am very guilty of not testing recipes. If I can get through something on the first try and take good, copious notes, the recipe is done to me. And I haven't had a lot of problems. And there were only so many recipes in this book, and I can't remember which ones I had to make multiple times. Some of the most challenging recipes are the most traditional, say, Moros y Cristianos. They can be very forgiving, but that the same time they require you to be intentional. And I use another word spiritual because they're so time-honored. The appearance and the flavor need to be just so.
That's why I'm glad this was 50 recipes and not 500 rice recipes. I would have never eaten rice again, which is against my heritage. But it's funny because a lot of people have been asking me, “Why rice?!” Rice is a powerful and potent story for telling the African and African American influence narrative. Not just on the Southern kitchen but also tucked away in some of the other global narratives.
Kristen: You talk a lot in the book about pilaus, and I believe the Meyer Lemon Rice with Candied Garlic is an example of one, correct?
Michael: So that's not a pilau or perloo; it is me messing around in the kitchen. That's me being silly, me thinking I'm somebody with something to try. I would love to be able to say, yes, it's from the Lemon people of the Lemon Islands and their lemon ways, the Lemonheads.
I was also in a place where I might have two dimes to rub together and figure out how to make this extraordinary food with very little money and not so much time. And also, I think at the time I wrote this; I was probably growing that lemon, thyme, and lemon basil. So it was also about using the elements of things that I had that I invested the time and resources into, but now had to make them turn them into something I could build a food pantry off.
Kristen: Can you tell me about where this recipe came from or what you love about it? Anything you want to share about the candied garlic?
Michael: I am not sure if Melissa Clark or another food writer was, but I saw candied garlic one day and thought, garlic and sugar, two of my favorites. And I wanted to pair it with something tangy and lemony but savory. I like lemonade, lemon ice, lemon sorbet, sure, but I do not like other lemon desserts. I wanted a flavorful, bright lemon dish. So that's why I was so keen on making lemon rice, or a lemon perloo as we’re calling it these days. Just to keep the kids guessing!
Lemon rice sounds basic, but like lemon perloo, I want to know more! It sounds like something special. Because the idea of a perloo is that you have a solid flavor base, no matter what it is, and you marry that base with the rice and let them duke it out.
Wait a minute. I said marry and duke it out. That's unfelicitous, isn't it? It is fitting, though. You're married, right? I'm married. We know.
Kristen: Yes, we know.
Kristen (voiceover): Hey, t's Kristen. Are you enjoying this chat with Michael as much as I did? If so, please head to the Genius Recipe Tapes and hit subscribe to not miss out on other conversations like this one. Like my recent interview with King Arthur Baking Company's team on what it was like to develop their 2021 Recipe of the Year, Perfectly Pillowy Cinnamon Rolls. In the second half of the episode, we will get into how a deeper understanding of where dishes come from affects how Michael cooks. Stay tuned.
Kristen: Well, what does define a pilau or a perloo?
Michael: A pilau or perloo is known as such for its conglomerate nature. If I called it a rice casserole, I could feel the rocks coming at me through the window. But it is akin to a casserole. It's that one pot, one-dish meal. And I know that there are many one-pot and one-dish meals around the world, especially in rustic, rural, peasant cultures. It is a layered concept. You have this word from Central Asia, pilau, or pilaf, and it comes through palov. The word in terminology doesn't speak to an exact or direct origin. So there is the heritage of rice going from southwest Asia through the Mediterranean through the Iberian peninsula, which was under Moorish rule. It is then complicated because rice in the New World, in the Western Hemisphere, is a story of enslaved Africans knowing about growing, cultivating, and preparing rice. Almost all the rice dishes that we see in the Atlantic world have the imprint of West African cooking. Rice was grown by villages and commercially outside of the Rice Belt for the slave trade. It was demanded of them by European colonial powers and African elites engaged in the slave trade. The food plantations grew yams and rice and maize, and other things to outfit slave ships from Ghana, Angola, Nigeria, and other spaces. That rice is more typically Oryza sativa or Asian rice.
In contrast, Oryza glaberrima, African rice, was the predominant type before coming to Europe. Still, there was quite a significant growth of Oryza sativa by way of the gold routes and silk routes with the Arab world. So we have all these different pieces to the puzzle, and we have this word that suggests a deeper connection. Karen Hess, a great culinary historian and food writer of late, went to great lengths in the Carolina rice kitchen to draw this link. But I don't think it was there. I believe that these cooks from West Africa did not need a lecture about Central Asia’s rice. But I think some of the culinary ideas, the flavorings, and the methods may have trickled down, but that trickle-down was a long trickle down. It takes a lot to get eke out that trickle-down from Persia to medieval Europe to the Iberian Peninsula to the Mediterranean and France, and so on.
Whereas Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau were right there. Do you see what I'm saying? It was a few traveled ideas paired with the knowledge in the heads, hearts, and taste buds of African women and men cooking this rice for over 300 years in the American South.
Kristen: All of this history, this information you have gathered in your research, the people you've talked to, the dishes you've cooked. How is this in your mind as you're cooking rice in your kitchen daily?
Michael: It has undoubtedly informed my pantry and what I have around. Right now, I have Arborio, Basmati, Jasmine, long-grain, Carolina Gold rice in my pantry, along with rice from West Africa. I buy things and receive gifts when I am out in the world. I certainly have preferences about what kind of things I use. I'm not too bougie about it, but I will do it with the best if I'm going to do this. I plant things mindfully. My tomato plants include Amish Pace, San Marzano, Cherokee Purples, and large red tomatoes, the old Southern tomato. For other people, cooking is about lifestyle, and that's at odds with being poor. And that's at odds with us trying to survive. And that's also at odds with ancestral memory. To approach a pot of rice means to have the best ingredients I can that are also economical. The minute you start getting fancy and out of the box with it, you also begin to lose the element of satisfaction and pride in your work. The idea that you can grow things grow a few things, acquire a few things, and put together something straightforward but unique, delicious, and satisfying is unmatchable.
It’s like when I was doing a program at the Jewish Museum with Michael Salamonov. He said, sure, I could throw in this or that ingredient, but then it goes from being Jewish or Israeli to Italian or Greek. And that statement got to me because it was true. Yes, you can add Parmesan or this or that onto the rice, but the minute you do that, it's no longer where it's at. Being careful about ingredients and how you do it up is vital because it helps you retain the actual feeling, intuition, and spirit of the dish and the culture. Those are my key ingredients.
I want the people who cook the food that I put on paper, the recipes and spells that I put on paper to have three different paths. One of which is patience and searching. When I tell you to grow a specific tomato or herb, wait three to four months, I mean it. I want you to have the experience of seeing the plant, smelling the plant, what it feels like to crush that Ethiopian basil in your hands, and take a whiff and understand how it is not like other basil. I want you to have that earthy, ecological experience with your food. The other point is that I want you to have the past’s flavors the best I can communicate them. You can make your kitchen pepper, buy it from my spice line or use a simple store ingredient. But I want you to have that in there to understand these simple little tricks take that simple recipe to the next level.
Let’s talk about red rice. The stock is a certain way. I use a lot of vegetables in my stock. They would have what they called “soup bunch” in Charleston, which contained turnips, rutabagas for sweetness, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, and collard greens. This very rich vegetable stock goes into this pot of rice with intense, red, fruity tomatoes. You add kitchen pepper, going above and beyond black pepper. Sea salt or whatever pungent salt you want to use. And then you have a bird chili like the kind of plant I was just watering, or cayenne pepper, fish pepper. These peppers are all beyond the store-bought red pepper flakes. .And then, it's up to you to make sure that chicken is flavorful. So if all you have is cheap chicken, great, suppose you have a farm chicken. And if you have chicken from a butcher that sources flavorful chickens, great.
But that's the thing. How do we take these 7 to 8 ingredient country dishes and give them back their flavor, life, and integrity without being too fancy, without being too extravagant? Because that wasn't the point. The original point was to make community happen, to communalize, and to satisfy. Those must be the first two ideas. And as you can hear me work through this, this is not what you usually see in a lot of Western food writing and understanding about food, right? That's not it. It's time, temperature, technique, and silly things, like taking the silverskin off meat. Do you all know black folks eat that part of the meat? We eat that skin. We know we don't throw that away; that’s not how this works. It's all those different pieces that we are rescuing. And that's why I'm so passionate about it. I am on fire about these topics. It's something that you have to live. You can't learn and teach it; you have to live it.
Listener Eva: Hi, This is Eva from San Diego, and you wanted to know how we cook rice at our house. We use a rice cooker, and we wash our rice three times, which is how Chinese people wash their rice. Then we put Chinese sausages in the rice. The Chinese sausages’ oil goes into the rice and gives it an extra flavor as it cooks. The rice on the bottom also forms a nice crispy crust that can be eaten or made into a jook.
Listener Becky Manning: Hi, I'm Becky Manning from Orem, Utah. I like cooking brown rice in the Instant Pot. First, I rinse it and then put it in the Instant Pot with equal parts water or broth, cook at pressure for 22 minutes, and then a natural release for 12 minutes. It's been a great way to add healthier options to our diet, and we like using it in grain bowls.
Listener Laura: Hi, my name is Laura, and I live in the Netherlands. My favorite way to cook rice is in a Persian rice cooker. Not only because the rice turns out delicious every time, but also because it reminds me of my childhood. Growing up, my favorite moment at the dinner table was when my Dad would turn the rice out of the rice cooker onto a serving plate. You would see this beautiful pile of rice covered in a crust of potatoes, crispy on the outside and buttery soft on the inside. This crust, called tahdig, comes in many different forms, but the potato version is my all-time favorite because it is pure magic.
Kristen: (voiceover): Thanks for listening. You can follow Michael on Twitter at Kosher Soul and Instagram at The Cooking Gene, and you can find his new book, Rice, anywhere books are sold. Our show was put together by Coral Lee, with support from Emily Hanhan. If you come across a Genius Recipe that makes you double-take candied garlic style, I would always love to hear from you at genius@food52.com. And if you like the The Genius Recipe Tapes, do take a second to rate, review, and subscribe, if you haven't already. Talk to you soon.