Illustration by George McCalman

“The water is food to rice,” says Roberts. “As long as the top leaves are above the water, the plant survives.” For 110 to 120 days, as the rice matures toward harvest, there’s a careful dance between wetness and dryness. You have to monitor the weather constantly because a serious downpour can tip the scales. The rice grows better, tastes better, and carries more nutrients if it shares the field with agricultural companions such as sorghum, millet, benne, and Sea Island peas. “Rice doesn’t like to grow alone,” Roberts says. You’ll know you have a rice crop when the panicle — the part that resembles the branches of a willow tree — grows heavy with grains. As Roberts puts it, “the panicle bends.”

But plantation owners didn’t know any of this, which meant that specific tribal pockets of West Africa were targeted for enslavement because Africans had the experience and the knowledge. “Rice for thousands of years had been a major crop for Africans,” says Jonathan Green, a Charleston artist who has played an instrumental role in amplifying the true history of rice in the region and in creating an extensive visual tribute to the culture of the Atlantic diaspora. It’s no accident that fishing boats in Senegal and other coastal areas of West Africa look similar to Gullah fishing boats in South Carolina, and it’s no accident that both coasts, separated by the Atlantic Ocean, produce cuisines devoted to rice and seafood.