Hi all. As some of you may remember, I started marketing my own organic brown rice this year. The reasons we took the leap are many--wanting to escape the commodity system, wanting more connection with consumers, tired of letting other companies put their name on my rice, etc. One of the great benefits of doing this has been the feedback I get from people who have eaten my rice, because they love it. People regularly tell me that it is the best rice they've ever had, and didn't know rice could taste like that.
This is great, but now I want to figure out why, so that I can repeat it! One reason could be that I let our rice mature and dry down in the field, as opposed to the normal practice of cutting it green and drying it with air and heat in the bin. Like tree-ripened fruit, I think it allows the flavor to more fully evolve.
But could there be more? Some organic farmers swear that soil nutrition plays a huge role in making sweet peaches, for example. Charles Benbrook refers to a "dilution effect" caused by nitrate fertilizers that essentially waters down nutrient levels and flavors. The article below shows that "specific genes have surprisingly different expression levels in the grain endosperm when nitrogen is supplied either in an organic or an inorganic form."
Does anyone know of any more work in this field, especially with grains? What do the rest of you do to grow tasty produce? Does flavor correlate with nutritive value? I'd also like to hear any general thoughts on the topic.
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