Growing up in Houston, Mississippi, a small town just 45 minutes or so south of Tupelo, potatoes were a staple on our evening table, especially sweet potatoes, which we got from Vardaman, just ten miles or so to the west.
Vardaman is known as the sweet potato capital of the world, not because of the volume of potatoes that they grow, but because of their sweetness. There is something about the soil in a relatively small area that is perfect for sweet potatoes. So, it was an interesting culinary change when I moved to south Louisiana for the first time, and rice was the staple starch, not potatoes.
In later years farmers began growing rice in northwest Mississippi, along the river, where fields were easy to flood. Eco-friendly farmers flood their fields after the harvest, and you just wouldn’t believe the millions of ducks and geese that winter there, eating the left-over stubble and rice that the combines couldn’t pick up. Having that many birds in the fields also reduces the use of artificial fertilizer as much as forty percent.
There are several different ways to prepare rice, most people jut use a rice cooker, although there is an interesting French technique of soaking a cloth towel in water, adding the raw rice, then folding it up and baking it. But a rice cooker is a lot simpler. Fried rice is always good, and it a great way to use up left overs, but arancini is my favorite recipe, although many people use risotto, not just steamed rice.
Arancini are fried balls of rice that usually have a stuffing of some sort, my favorite being stewed, falling apart pork. If you really want to dress up your rice, use homemade chicken stock that has been simmered with leftover, baked chicken bones. It really makes a difference, adding a depth of flavor regular, canned chicken stock will never have.
Another Cajun staple is rice and gravy. It is another great example of how poor folks stretch their food budget with simple and inexpensive ingredients. It’s nothing more than steamed rice, covered in a gravy made from a meat stock. Simple, inexpensive and filling. Perhaps my favorite is nothing more than steamed rice browned in lots of garlic butter, and of course, the red pepper flakes I put in almost everything.
Enjoy!