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RICE, UNIVERSAL FOOD:
It's a cereal plant (sativa Oryza) very disseminated all over the world (there are more than 100,000 varieties).The rice cultivated and consumed in Italy belongs to the japonica subspecies ; it has a thin stem, empty, high approximately 1 m; on the top of the plant a panicle is formed that, when mature, has numerous grains (the dry fruits typical of the cereals), which at their harvest remain wrapped in yellowish leave coverings (constituting the so-called risone). The coverings are removed as a result of successive workings of husking and 'sbramatura' . From the point of view pertaining to the technology of the commerce, four types of rice are classified : common or original, with pearly and opaque grain, little resistant to the cooking, indicated for the soup preparation (the varieties" Balilla ", " Raffaello ", "Pierrot " are part of it); semithin, with pearly grain mainly resistant to the cooking (varieties " Maratelli "," Rosa Marchetti ", " Vialone nano "," Romeo "); thin, with vitreous structure grain, resistant to the baking (the varieties " Rome ", "Ringo ", " Rizzotto ", " Race 77"); superthin, with vitreous structure grain very resistant to the cooking (varieties " Arborio ", " Canaroli", " Baldo").
Rice has its origins in the current Indonesia (the most ancient traces go back approximately to 7000 b.c.). It was famous to the Greeks and the Romans not as food but as medicinal plant.
The rice of the varieties belonging to the common type cooks, according to the preparations, between 12 and 13 minutes; the semithin ones between 13 and 15; the thin ones between 14 and 16; the superthin ones between 16 and 20. The first type is generally used for soups and cakies; the second one for long cooking soups, pie-dishes and croquettes; the third one for stuffed vegetable, bordure, sartù and pastry-puffs; the fourth one for 'risotti' and also for the preparations of the two previous categories.
Today in commerce, there are types of rice "that do not over-do", that is they maintain their own gastronomic characteristics unchanged also after several hours from their coocking; that is due to a particular process of prebaking, called parboiling, thanks to which it is obtained the double result to have the rice at fast cooking and at a greater resistance once cooked, but they cannot be compared to the quality of the previously described types of rice.
The rice is well conserved even if the confection has been opened for some weeks, on condition that it is kept far away from humid, in a fresh and airy place.
It can be said that a type of rice is well cooked when the tooth, in cutting a grain, meets an elastic resistance but not a still hard nucleus.

THE RICE IN ITALY:
The first sure news of the presence of the rice in Italy go back to the second half of XV century, period in which it began being cultivated in Lombardia, Piemonte, Veneto and Emilia. 
It is told that rice had been cultivated since XII-XIII centuries in the humid zones of central Italy, along the streams coming down from the Appennino towards the Adriatic sea. The introduction, dissemination and the development of the rice in the Marches is attributed to Federico II, even if documented attempts of rice cultivations in our region go back, nearly sure, to the end of ' 600: the first found certificates are of 1801 (Archives of State of Macerata).
 "Da questo abbozzo della giacitura ed indole dal suolo della Marca non sembra potersi concepire come in essa abbia potuto introdursi e prosperare la coltura dei risi che esige terreno piano e ben livellato, capace di una perenne e comoda irrigazione...".With these words they express their doubts, in February 1826, Domenico Morichi, public chemistry university professor, head physician of the Health, member of the Special Commission for 'le Risaie della Marca', Giacomo Folchi, public university professor of medical matter, physician of Commission of the Health, added member of the Special Commission for 'le Risaie della Marca' and Clemente Folchi, engineer, hydraulic expert of S. Consulta in their" physical and hydraulic Relation over the Risaie of Marca", addressed to His Excellency Monsignor Olgiati, secretary of S. Consulta and President of the Commission 'delle Risaie della Marca. And they continue:
"...ma quando abbiamo veduto su i luoghi i terreni coltivati a riso, ne abbiamo valutata l'estensione  ed esaminato questo ramo d'industria agricola sotto tutti gli aspetti, cominciando da quello riguardante la salute pubblica, abbiamo dovuto rinunziare in gran parte alle nostre prevenzioni e convincerci che non si poteva condannare in massa la coltivazione dei risi nella Provincia della Marca".       Through the years the presence of illegal rice-fields threatening the citizens' health, the quarrels between agriculturists and the millers for the possession of the water of the streams in the summer period, when the rice need of being submerged and the millers had to mill the grain, the action of the doctors who opposed with treatises on the pernicious fevers and directed attacks to the local administrators, rendered more and more difficult the life of the rice in the Marches. ".                                                                                                        ...i richiami portati contro le risaie nascevano da quelle inevitabili collisioni d'interessi che sempre hanno luogo fra le famiglie di uno stesso paese...Che essendo i torrenti scarsi d'acqua nell'estate, e questa servire dovendo ai molini, debbasi aver pria riguardo a questi che alle risaie...".
But owing to the new law of the 12th June 1866 n°2967 and the Regal Regulations of 13th February 1870 n° 5515, containing numerous rules such as the spin of the cultivations, the minimal surface, the right distance between the fields and the inhabited houses, the respect for the millers etc..., the cultivations of rice in the Marches began slowly disappearing until at the beginning of 1900 we did not find any trace. In the reclaimed rice-fields the cultivation of the maize was, later on, practiced. 
Along the valley of Musone "stream" (in" the physical and hydraulic Relation on the Risaie of Marca the rivers of the Marches are not called rivers but streams) it was cultivated at the dry ground, without submersion, or better with the contribution of a water amount equal  to that necessary for a maize cultivation.
It is found out that already millenia before Christ, in Asia, the rice was cultivated at the dry ground on China hills.
This rice cultivated at "the dry ground" has organoleptic characteristics different from that one commonly cultivated in submersion, possesses a very intense scent and a taste hardly describable with words.

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