Prized for its distinctive flavor and delicate texture, Carolina Gold rice has a complex history in the Lowcountry — and generations of growers helped keep the storied grain alive.
If you spend some time eating around Charleston, it won’t take long before you hear about Carolina Gold rice. The name comes from the seeds’ golden hue, a halo that glows from the top of the plant as it nears harvest time. Home cooks revere it and often speak of it as the only true canvas for dishes that express the spirit of Gullah Geechee cuisine. “My mother cooked rice every day, but not any kind of rice,” says Lavern Meggett, one of the daughters of Emily Meggett, the Lowcountry legend who achieved national fame in her 80s. “It was Carolina Gold. She kept a big container under the kitchen sink. This rice always comes out fluffy, and each grain just separates so well, making it a beautiful bowl of deliciousness.”
Local restaurant chefs, too, hold Carolina Gold in high esteem. At Lowland, an elegant spot on George Street, chef Jason Stanhope likes to cook it with bay leaf and preserved lemon. “After it has rested, we fluff it with a little butter, and there’s nothing better,” Stanhope says. “Because it is long and fragile, it breaks when it is threshed. This yields middlins. The middlins are my favorite. They are little pearls that, for me, resemble the coveted Japanese short grain. Something happens when the grain is broken. It unlocks the full flavor potential.”
It would be an understatement to say that Carolina Gold is woven into the history of the city. True to its name, Carolina Gold made Charleston rich. Having originated in Asia, it appeared in South Carolina around the time of the Revolutionary War and expanded to become a dominant Lowcountry crop. It was so prevalent that there are even old recipes for rice birds — bobolinks that fattened up from feasting on Carolina Gold from the fields.
“After they had gorged, they were among the tastiest of all birds,” write David S. Shields and Kevin Mitchell in their book Taste the State: South Carolina’s Signature Foods, Recipes & Their Stories. “Whether baked in a pie or basted in butter and broiled on a spit, the rice bird was the delight of the autumn Charleston table.” The authors refer to Carolina Gold as the “most famous culinary ingredient ever produced in South Carolina.”…