Wild Rice Salad with Blood Orange and Pomegranate Balsamic Vinaigrette
My Mom gave me some wild rice from that she got from a friend in Minnesota, and I have been meaning to experiment with making some dishes with it. When reading a caption from the package of Singing Pines wild rice, I learned a little about the origin of this rice, and it peaked my curiosity.
August is called “manominikegississ” the month of the rice making moon. Traditionally, the Ojibway and Sioux Indians of Minnesota harvested the “mahomem” or wild rice with two people in a canoe. One person poled the boat through the rice bed, while the other, using sticks, knocked the rice kernels into the boat. The rice was then parched; the hulls removed and using a birch bark winnowing basket, the rice was separated from the chaff. The native peoples considered the mahomem a sacred gift from the Great Spirit or Creator.
