Heirloom Varietal Rice and Holiday Meals

Organic Koda Farm`s Kokuho Rose, True Koda Varietal and Nirvana Rice

Nov 25, 2008 Jacqueline Church

Heirloom rice, sustainably farmed by the Koda Family. Delicious product with a rich history - of American farming traditions, an immigrant's innovation and perseverance.

Holiday meals, family traditions; both are hallmarks of this time of year. Koda Farms' Kokuho Rose™ True Koda Varietal™, and Nirvana rice and grain blends are unique, worthy additions to your holiday table. Celebrate family history, theirs and yours, and add a steaming bowl of heirloom rice to your holiday meals.

True Varietal Rice, Heirloom Grains and More

Look for true heirloom varietal rice, especially organic rice from family farms; and you’ll find few. Commitment to agricultural practices that are environmentally sound and protective of heirloom grains is not the quickest nor cheapest way to produce rice. So why farm that way? Isn’t bigger and faster, better? Isn’t it cheaper to buy mass produced food?

The answers are complex. Yet the truth is simple. Family matters. Good food matters. Being good stewards of the land we are passing on to the next generation, matters. To the Koda family, these things all matter a great deal. Koda Farms heirloom rice is superior rice with a proud family history and ethical growing standards. Of course, all of that would matter little if the taste were not also superior. It is.

Heirloom Rice Varietals, New Nirvana Rice and Grain Blends

Slow Food Nation featured a marketplace of organic and sustainable vendors; everything from honey to cheese to fruit to ice cream was available. Koda Farms’ booth included a new product of boxed rice blends. Having just begun to explore Indian cuisine at home, learning to cook wonderful dishes from Raghavan Iyer’s 660 Curries, the Indian blend was a welcome find.

This Thanksgiving, it seems everyone has an Asian-themed recipe for the Thanksgiving table. From sources like Saveur, to Food & Wine, it seems a recognition of more than one “tradition” is the trend. Even the Iron Chef Thanksgiving show had Morimoto and Cora incorporating tandoori spices in their turkey presentation.

Nirvana in a Bowl - Heirloom Brown Rice, Healthy Grains, Seeds, Spices

The Koda Farms products tested here include: brown rice, sushi rice and Nirvana rice blends. Some were purchased and more were provided by Koda Farms for review. While Thanksgiving around these parts does not venture to that side of the family tree, plenty of other meals do. Turkey seems especially suited to Asian spices, and sticky rice dressing with lap chong sausage sounds divine. Maybe next week.

Koda Farms rices and rice blends have become a treasured stash in the pantry. Parsed out for meals deemed special enough. Not that they’re so dear in price, it’s more a reflection of the cook’s circumstance. Besides, it makes it a bit more special if it’s not eaten every day, right?

Koda Farms’ Uniquely American Story

The family’s beginning in farming was lead by a true pioneer who emigrated from Japan to California in 1882. The farm history is woven with the fabric of American history including the shameful Executive Order 9066 which saw the Koda Farm (and many others) liquidated and the family “relocated” to internment centers. Like so many citizens of Japanese descent, Keisaburo Koda still remained loyal to the US and post-war threw himself into citizenship and civil rights efforts, including backing the fledgling Japanese American Citizens’ League.

The farm remains family owned and operated and committed to sustainable and organic farming. The heirloom varietals are fragrant with beautiful tender texture but perfect body. These products have fewer broken grains than larger commercial products. They are slow maturing, low yielding and require proprietary knowledge of the Koda family to produce. These characteristics, the very nature of heirloom varieties, make them less suited for mass-production methods.

In addition to producing and protecting heirloom varietal rice, Koda Farms practices good land stewardship. It is now well documented that poor environmental results will follow most commercial practices of big farms, from decimation of wildlife, to destruction of ecosystems and the introduction of pesticides and chemicals, the list of sins at big farms is long.

Koda Farms Supports the Environment

By following sound farming practices that add vital wetlands to the arid San Joaquin Valley, Koda Farms supports the local ecosystem by providing living, feeding, and breeding habitat for an amazing array of birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, and amphibians. They make fields available for California State University research projects, bird population studies, and local mosquito control projects.

The new Nirvana Rice blends are even boxed in recycled paperboard, printed with soy inks and feature an innovative, biodegradable, clear windows made from grain!

The copyright of the article Heirloom Varietal Rice and Holiday Meals in Gourmet Food is owned by Jacqueline Church. Permission to republish Heirloom Varietal Rice and Holiday Meals in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.