Rice wine

“ The “small” rice is sometimes ground and employed to adulterate wheat flour. Rice, when prepared in the many forms of puddings, cakes, soups, etc., is very easy of digestion, and is specially fitted for the food of invalids. In Japan, where the rice crop is a leading one, an alcoholic drink called sake is made from it. A wine is made in China from this grain, and the Arrack of the East is also a rice beverage. ”

“ The wine or liquor, which we received in large jars, and which was so miserably bad as not to be used, afforded a great treat to the poor people, whose circumstances seldom allowed them to taste it. This liquor is brewed from a mixture of rice and millet, and from its quickly turning sour seems to have little strength, and to have undergone a very imperfect degree of fermentation. Their hot wine is seldom used except by the upper class of people who, not satisfied with the strong empyreumatic flavour communicated in the distillation, drink it boiling hot in the midst of summer. ”

“ It is plain that there was always a pretense put forward that the grape-wine detracted from the culture of the grain, although, with some care, the same area might probably have yielded a nobler beverage than was made of the rice and barley, grown where the grape had been rooted out. But the intellectual effect of it was evidently feared. In so regular a clock-work as the Chinese State, what might be more dangerous than irregular movements so very easily produced by wine in the heads of people? Even the making of the grape-wine was often prohibited. ”

“ Chinese "wine" is an ardent spirit distilled from rice, and is modified in various ways so as to produce certain brands, some of which are of quite moderate strength, and really may be classed as wine. It is always drunk hot, the heat being supplied by vessels of boiling water, in which the pewter wine-flasks are kept standing. The wine-cups are small, and it is possible to drink a good many of them without feeling in the least overcome. ”

“ Indeed there is probably no country of the globe where, in proportion to population, there is so little spirituous liquor introduced as into China, what is imported being almost exclusively for the consumption of foreigners. The Chinese is emphatically a born "tea-totaller," or friend of abstemiousness, for the native drinks, substitutes for wine, which are obtained chiefly from rice and millet, are only used on special occasions, and then only in small quantities. ”

“ Small balls of boiled rice, mixed with rice flower, called Dundakaria, a cowrie a piece, mixed with water, and serves as meat and drink. Small balls of rice, mixed with honey and pepper, called Bakaroo, sold at five cowries each. Small balls made from bean flowers, fried in fat, like a bunch of grapes. Their intoxicating draughts are the palm wine called roa bum, bouza, and aquadent, very much adulterated and mixed with pepper.
At daylight the whole household arise: the women begin to clean the house, the men to wash from head to foot ”

“ They have several sorts of fruits, as apples, lemons, quinces, moulats, sugar canes, citruls, figs, grapes, cucumbers of two sorts, trees, which produce a substance like meal, walnuts, almonds, filberts, pistachios, plumbs, apricots, services, and cocoa nuts, but no store of palms, of which they have only a few about private houses. Their drink is a kind of wine made of rice, having no other wine in the country, neither is any other imported by them. They do not even know what wine is, nor will they drink of it. ”

“ Make some smooth gruel, well boiled, strain, and stir it. Some like half brandy and half white wine; others, wine, sugar, lemon peel, and nutmeg.—Or: add to 1⁄4 pint gruel a large table-spoonful of brandy, the same of white wine, capillaire, a little nutmeg and lemon peel. Some use ale; no wine or brandy. Rice Caudle—Soak 2 table-spoonsful of rice in water, an hour, then simmer it gently in 11⁄4 pint of milk till it will pulp through a sieve; put the pulp and milk back into the saucepan, with a bruised clove and a bit of sugar. ”

“ Three ounces of ground rice, and two ounces of sweet almonds, blanched and beaten fine; the rice must be boiled and beaten likewise. Mix them well together, with two eggs, sugar and butter, to your taste. Make as thin a puff paste as possible, and put it round some cups; when baked, turn them out, and pour wine sauce over them. This quantity will make four puddings.
Prune Pudding.
Mix a pound of flour with a quart of milk; beat up six eggs, and mix with it a little salt, and a spoonful of beaten ginger. Beat the whole well together till it is a fine stiff batter; put in a pound of prunes ”

“ The fame of its cats and carpets, its poets and philosophers, its wine and its rose gardens is widespread; but of the fame of its men and women little is heard. Persia still lives on the credit of its past glory, yet nationality is indestructible, and the germ of the power which made such a bold bid for world conquest, though it has lain dormant for the greater part of the last 2,250 years, is still vital, and with the help and guidance of the West, Persia may yet take an honourable place among the nations of the Middle East. Isolation and sleep have gone, and huge changes are bound to come. ”

“ These places proved of as much interest to us as did Madrid.
In Madrid the main thoroughfares are kept surprisingly clean, while the back streets are filthy. Several nights we spent theatre-going and saw some of Spain's celebrities.
In the day time, between the hours of eleven and four, the streets are practically deserted, for the sun is so hot that work is impossible. Later in the afternoons the boulevards and squares are crowded.
The Spaniard, the most courteous of all men, is insanely fond of bull fights, cigarettes, coffee, wine and women. ”

“ In the stores along the main thoroughfares milch cows are stalled, and when a customer arrives the proprietor simply milks the amount called for fresh from the cow. By this means the buyer is sure of the purity of the milk.
Soon tiring of Portugal and its oddities, we secured tickets for Madrid, but before reaching there we had a rare experience.
Leaving Lisbon about 9:30 we arrived at a station,—Baylo,—where we should have changed cars. There the train remained some minutes and during the wait we purchased two bottles of wine and four loaves of bread. ”

“ Wheat and other necessary grains are produced there in abundance: deer, Cattle, buffaloes, goats, and wild boars; and fruits and spices. If there be anything lacking, the Chinese from Chincheo bring it, such as chinaware and silks. The wine always used and drunk there is made from palms, by cutting off the clusters of fruit that they produce, when green—that fruit is called cocos—from which, after cutting the leaf stalks, they gather the liquor that flows forth, and boil it in jars, until it becomes so strong that it causes intoxication and has the same effects as the strongest Spanish wine. ”

“ It is claimed that it retards fermentation, and that red wines under its effects develop more color, because the marc can be left longer in the fermenting vat; that the froth of plastered wine is livelier and sooner disappears, which pleases the merchants; and that it has a preservative effect upon the wine. It is claimed by some that it renders the wine dryer and harsher, as it does, if used to excess, and by others, that it unites with a portion of the water of the juice, and renders the remaining juice richer in sugar. ”

“ Rice consists chiefly of starch, and therefore cannot by itself make a proper bread. It is used in the cotton factories to form weavers’ dressings for warps. The Chinese reduce its flour into a pulp with hot water, and mould it into figures and plates, which they afterwards harden, and ornament with engravings, resembling those of mother-of-pearl. When a decoction of rice is fermented and distilled, it affords the sort of ardent spirit called arrack in the East Indies. ”

“ A large proportion of the rice brought to Europe is used for starch-making, and some is taken by distillers of alcohol. Rice is also the source of a drinking spirit in India, known as arrack, and the national beverage of, Japan—sake—is prepared from the grain by means of an organic ferment. ”

“ Take fully ripe berries, pick them over and hull them, and put them in a keg with a large bung. Ten kilogrammes of fruit to 12 litres of old spirits of wine of 85 per cent. (22 lbs. to 31⁄8 gals.) are used. After macerating for twenty-four hours, the liquor is drawn off and filtered. It is a rose-colored liquor of a very pleasant aroma. Then the fruit is crushed, and brandy of 50 per cent. is added, and the whole is allowed to macerate for a month, and then the marc is pressed. The second tincture has an odor and flavor inferior to the first, and has more color. ”

“ We know that alcohol, water, and acids exist in all wines, in varying quantities; that some are sweet, and contain sugar, and that others are dry, thoroughly fermented, and contain none. We also know that the alcohol in different wines may vary from 4 or 5 per cent. in piquette made by washing the pomace with water, to 20 or 25 per cent. in the more strongly fortified. And we know generally how a wine is modified as to its taste and effect on the system, by such substances as water, alcohol, sugar, and acid ”

“ Every body knows that no product of the arts varies so much as wine; that different countries, and sometimes the different provinces of the same country, produce different wines. These differences, no doubt, must be attributed chiefly to the climate in which the vineyard is situated—to its culture—the quantity of sugar contained in the [Pg 90] grape juice—the manufacture of the wine; or the mode of suffering its fermentation to be accomplished. If the grapes be gathered unripe, the wine abounds with acid; but if the fruit be gathered ripe, the wine will be rich. ”

“ In the Case of Dry Wines, whose sugar has all been transformed, the same attentions are to be bestowed as in the case of new red wines, and the rules laid down are referred to. (See Red Wine.)
Mellow White Wines, that is, those which retain a portion of their sweetness after the tumultuous fermentation, particularly if they do not carry 15 per cent. of alcohol, require the greatest amount of care in order to preserve their mellowness in aging; for if left to themselves they will again enter into fermentation, and become dry. ”

“ Currants are more to our purpose—for that small Corinth grape, the produce of the islands of Zante, Cephalonia, and Ithaca, and of the Morea, which comes to us so thickly coated with dust that we might seem to import vineyard and all—belongs, like the candied peel, almost exclusively to cakes and puddings. Of this fruit we devour in the year about 180,000 cwts. Raisins, being in more general use—at the dessert, for instance, and in making sweet wine—are in still greater demand; we can not do with less than 240,000 cwts of them. ”

“ Four months more are needed for the ripening of the grain, during which the fields are kept clear of weeds, the natives wading back and forth through the mud in their task. After cutting and heaping, the paddy is made into stacks. In six weeks more the grain is separated from the straw by treading or by the use of the flail, or by causing ponies to trot over it. It may be said that there is nothing in nature more beautiful than a valley of green ripening rice in the midst of verdant hills. In the flood of rich color beneath my eyes, I have gazed upon such a scene with inexpressible delight. ”

“ It is not probable that rice will ever be used to any extent in this country as a source of industrial alcohol, although it is used to a large extent in the manufacture of beverages, as for instance in beers, which are often made partly of rice. ”

“ The hot water is merely allowed to rest a minute on the tea-leaves, and the infusion is a clear straw-coloured liquid with a delicious aroma and flavour, grateful and refreshing at all times. If Japanese tea “stands,” it acquires a coarse bitterness and an unwholesome astringency. Milk and sugar are not used. A clean-looking wooden or lacquer pail with a lid is kept in all tea-houses, and though hot rice, except to order, is only ready three times daily, the pail always contains cold rice, and the coolies heat it by pouring hot tea over it. ”

“ Flavor with onion, if desired, and if it does not become thick enough, dissolve a little rice flour with cold water, and add it to the barley ten minutes before removing from the fire. Serve with cream or with lettuce for breakfast or dinner.
Rye is richer in minerals and contains less starch than wheat. It is not superior to wheat, but it is one of the oldest and most perfect foods, and is the staff of life to some of the healthiest and strongest races of the old world. It is laxative, and because of this it is more suitable for certain individuals than for others. ”

“ Rye is the most important cereal crop of northern Europe, Russia, Germany, and Austro-Hungary producing over 50 per cent of the world's supply. One of the most important grain crops for the world (although relatively unimportant in the United States) is rice. The fruit of this grasslike plant, after thrashing, screening, and milling, forms the principal food of one third of the human race. Moreover, its stems furnish straw, its husks make a bran used as food for cattle, and the grain, when fermented and distilled, yields alcohol. ”