The word "rice" has an Indo-Iranian origin: it came to English from Greek "óryza", via Latin "oriza", Italian "riso" and finally Old French "ris". It is cultivated since ancient times in Far East, China, India and Japan. Also Arabs, Armenians, Coptics and Syrians knew rice and studied its methods of cultivation, as it's clear from references and quotations which can be found in several old texts.
The western world knew the rice only during the Christian Age. Egyptians and Jews probably didn't ever knew it, while ancients Greeks and Romans only mention it as aromatic and medicinal plant: Theophrastus and Stradone, talk about it, the physician Galen recommends it in a gladiators' diet and Pliny the Elder describes it in its Natural History.
Nevertheless, during the whole early Middle Ages, in Europe rice was still considered only an ingredient to prepare desserts or as medicinal plant. It was most of all imported from Far East upon payment of heavy taxes and was considered valuable as other precious spices. It is difficult to trace the came of rice to Italy: it was maybe introduced from Arabs into Sicily, or maybe from crusaders on their way back from the Holy Land, or even from merchants of the Venetian Republic. |
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