Low Country Rice Culture Days

Event Details

As an integral part of its educational programming, Middleton Place will celebrate Low Country Rice Culture Days again on Friday and Saturday, September 16-17, at the Outdoor Educational Center in the Middleton Place Stableyards. All activities associated with this event are included in the price of Gardens and Stableyards admission.

Though many aspects of the rice industry in the South Carolina Low Country will be discussed (i.e. origins, planting, cultivating, cultural impact), the bulk of the program will focus on the processing of Carolina Gold Rice and the tools used to complete this task.

Costumed interpreters will demonstrate and discuss the varied steps used in processing:

Threshing (the removal of the rice from the stalks); Winnowing or Fanning (separating the rice from the chaff and the hulls); Pounding (removing the hull off of the rice); and Polishing (removing the bran from the rice).

Costumed interpreters will also be creating tools used in the rice processing process, including the Flail (used in threshing) and Pestle and Mortar (used in pounding and polishing).

As South Carolina’s first great agricultural staple, Carolina Gold rice dominated the Low Country’s economy for almost two hundred years, influencing almost every aspect of life in the region from the early 18th century to the early 20th century.

For more information, please visit the website provided.