Comstock's magazine 0919 - September 2019 | Page 49

with labels in different languages for
shipping all over the world. Noisy fork-
lifts move across the massive factory
f loor, transporting the packaged rice
to trucks that will take it to its next
destination domestically or to the
ports in Sacramento and Stockton to
be shipped overseas.
SUSHI AND BEYOND
nia’s rice crop, mainly the broken or
half pieces that are discarded from pre-
mium table rice, is used to brew beer,
and Anheuser-Busch’s Fairfield plant
uses 2.5 million pounds each month to
make Budweiser and Bud Light, two of
the three top-selling beers in the U.S.,
according to Anheuser-Busch spokes-
woman Molly Drenkard. Rice helps
provide a clean, crisp taste that has
been part of Budweiser’s recipe since
1876, she says.
“All the rice they use at their brew-
ery in Fairfield comes from California,”
Crutchfield says. “They use a tremen-
dous amount.”
Rice also is the main ingredient
in sake. Gekkeikan Sake, founded in
The state’s rice industry has benefited
greatly from the growing popularity of
sushi throughout the world. According
to Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, For-
estry and Fisheries, there were nearly
120,000 Japanese restaurants outside of
Japan as of October 2017, a 30 percent
increase from 2015 and five times more
than its first study in 2006. And, accord-
ing to the report, more than 25,000 of
these restaurants are in North America.
“We’re the largest producer of sushi
rice, that short, medium rice we find
in sushi and Korean cuisine,” Johnson
says. “We grow all the sushi rice in the
United States. Whether you’re eating
sushi in New York, Dallas or here in Sac-
ramento, it’s all rice grown right here in
the Sacramento Valley.”
Mikuni, a popular sushi restaurant
with nine locations, is the largest user
of California rice in the Sacramento
region. The rice grown in the Sacra-
mento Valley is a medium grain, sticky
rice called Japonica, perfect for sushi
and Asian dishes. Daniel Schmook, Mi-
kuni’s executive chef, orders roughly
40,000 pounds a month, and the chain
has a chef at each location whose sole
job is to cook rice with its secret recipe.
Batches are cooked 10 pounds at a time,
with 20-30 batches each day, Schmook
says. “It goes into everything,” he says.
Mikuni also uses about 650 cases of rice
bran oil, another rice by-product, each
month.
Another big rice user in the Capital
Region is Anheuser-Busch, the largest
buyer in the U.S. One-third of Califor-
R e a d a b o u t Ye n L u :
E S K AT O N . O R G / A G E I S B E A U T I F U L
September 2019 | comstocksmag.com
49