Italy’s Rice Museum

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Italy’s Rice Museum

29 June 2016

In northern Piedmont, the flat expanses of rice fields create perfect reflections of the sky. Visit the Colombara Rice Museum in an ancient farmstead to step back in time.

Around Vercelli in northern Piedmont, there is an enchanting and fertile land surrounded by watery mirrors, where humans have nurtured ancient traditions and a deeply-rooted risicultural heritage since the 1500s. In these landscapes that have inspired poets and artists from all over the globe, Italian rice began its long journey to play an important part in the country’s gastronomy. The history of rice is as ancient as human civilization in Asia, and thousands of years of evolution passed before it even arrived on Italian soil. A sack of rice at the Colombara Estate A sack of rice at the Colombara Estate - © Courtesy of Tenuta La Colombara

The ancient journey of rice, from Asia to Italy

Wild rice was already an important source of food 15,000 years ago for the very first populations of Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Korea, China). Proof of the first cultivated rice has been dated in China and India some 7,000 years ago. Soon, rice farming expanded to many other Asian countries, but it had to wait for Alexander the Great to conquer the continent before being known in the Mediterranean lands. Teofrasto, a classic author who lived during the time of Alexander the Great, was the first to write about rice. He described it as a cereal able to grow in water for a long time and whose seeds were boiled to feed the people of Asia. Some centuries passed before rice found the same use in the Roman Empire. Indeed, at first rice was used as an herbal tea to heal the body, mostly bought by rich people. Even Horace wrote in one of his satires about a doctor who gave his patients an herbal rice tea. Egypt was rice’s first stop on its journey to the West, and later in 1000 BC, the Arabs brought it to Spain during their occupation: the Book of Agiculture written by Ibn Al’Awwam (1150) precisely describes all the phases of rice farming. It’s uncertain how rice arrived in Italy, but ancient documents testify to its presence by the end of the 14th century. Italy’s first rice farm was founded in 1468, and several years later, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, sent a letter along with twelve sacks of rice to the Duke of Ferrara. Once rice farming established itself in the Lombardy region, its wasn’t used only by apothecaries in herbal teas, but also by common people. It became part of their daily diet. After Lombardy, rice farming rapidly grew in production, branching out through the swampy areas of the Po Valley and reaching new areas, such as the current-day Piedmont region (the first Piedmontese rice was exported in 1525), Mantua, Verona, Vicenza, and Treviso. Along with its expansion, however, came an increase in malaria. Measures were taken to limit rice cultivation, like the order given by the Marquis of Ayamonte, governor of Milan, in September 1575 to cultivate rice no less than six miles from Milan and five miles from the borders of other cities. Nevertheless, its good output and economic advantages proved to be strong incentives to keep farming, and rice cultivation continued to grow. The crop was especially a life-saver during times of famine, providing a source of food when imports became difficult to acquire. From the Po Valley, rice cultivation spread to Emilia and Tuscany, although it was slower to catch on due to the naturally drier territory. In 1700, rice farms covered 20,000 hectares in the Milan territory, and a century later over 30,000 hectares of rice fields were cultivated in Vercelli’s territory alone. Nowadays, Italian rice production is concentrated mostly in the area covering the provinces of Vercelli, Novara, and Pavia, followed by Mantua, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Rovigo, and Ferrara, with a small presence in the Grosseto and Siena territories in Tuscany. There is no a specific production area for a singular rice variety, but according to the Riso Italiano community, there are no less than thirteen popular Italian rice varieties: Arborio, Ariete, Baldo, Carnaroli, Lido, Padano, Originario, Ribe, Roma, S. Andrea, Thaibonnet, Venere, and Vialone Nano.

The Italian mondine and rice museum

Old carts Old carts - © Courtesy of Tenuta La Colombara

Iron Iron - © Courtesy of Tenuta La Colombara

“Usually it was at the end of May. Late in the evening they were already in Piedmont, in Novara and Vercelli. They would be picked up at the train station with wagons, and then let off at the farmsteads and rice fields. They came from Emilia, Veneto, and Piacenza. There were many, mostly young girls (some of them 12, 13 years old); the older women, thirty years old, were called ‘the elders.’ They were the mondine, or mondariso, women who left their homes and families to go and work seasonally in the rice field for forty long and endless days. With their legs in the muddy water, their backs bent, their hands dirty and the mosquitoes’ torment, from dawn to dusk they bent to uproot the rice plants with their fingers. It was terrifically hard and strenuous work, but mostly a job that locals and outsiders, who accepted smaller salaries, competed for […] Nowadays, the squared marshlands are studded with the remains of empty farmsteads, symbols of an old and forgotten magnificent past. Just close your eyes and you’ll hear the mondine singing: a song of tears, struggle and love. And of soil.” Irina Stan, Vercelli Oggi In the small, 500-year old village of Livorno Ferraris, located just a half an hour from the “European rice capital” of Vercelli, it’s possible to visit and admire one of the most beautiful farmsteads of the area: The Torrone Estate in Colombara. The Colombara Estate has been a rice farmstead since its construction in the early 16th century, and is comprised of a church, a cemetery, and several annexes and houses. It has passed through the hands of many different noble families over the centuries, and today is owned by the Rondolino family. In 2002, the Rondolinos built a new rice mill that uses innovative and traditional technology. In particular, they make a Carnaroli rice that is known by international chefs for its high quality and high nutritional content: Aquerello. This rice is harvested and aged, then gently refined with a machine called the “helix,” which enriches the white rice with its own germ using a patented process. It has the properties of white rice, but the nutrition of whole-grain. Garage Garage - © Courtesy of Tenuta La Colombara

In the farmstead, the Rondolino family created a museum dedicated to the long traditions of Italian rice cultivation. Its walk-through rooms tell about the past, present, and future, showing all the details of old workshops, living quarters, a school, and the dormitory of the mondine. Every object and artifact has been placed exactly as it once was in the past. Walking through the silent rooms, with vintage tools strung up and the belongings of a mondine arranged as she would have left them, feels like taking a journey through time. The museum is certainly one reason to visit the estate, but its surrounding environment also presents a beautiful and unique view, with the square rice paddies reflecting the sky in perfect mirrors for miles around. And be assured that great emphasis has been given to bolstering populations of bats and dragonflies to naturally limit the number of mosquitoes.

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