Charleston, S.C. — After three days of eating barbecued pork fattened on rice bran, eggs Benedict on rice-flour waffles, saffron rice pudding, rice truffles and a parade of Lowcountry specialties ladled over rice, there was just one thing left to say.

Campbell Coxe, a tall, sunburnt farmer, stepped up to the microphone.

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"This isn't whiiiite rice," he said, drawing out the "white" with an exaggerated accent. "This is a gourmet rice."

Carolina Gold rice is that, and more. It's a grain with a past gilded in wealth and shadowed by slavery. Once so prevalent in South Carolina that it inspired a cuisine — as well as innumerable rice poster beds — Carolina Gold slipped virtually out of existence for much of the last century.

A handful of landowners grew a few acres over the years, captivated by the rice's history and its burnished appearance when ripe. A small number of knowledgeable cooks prized Carolina Gold for its unusual starch properties, which allow it to be cooked to creamy perfection in risottos or fluffed, with every grain separate, in Hoppin' John.

Long-grain white rice is a staple food for much of the world. Carolina Gold, just one variety of thousands of long-grain rices, is a passion. An alliance of rice growers, historians and agricultural researchers is trying to spread its fervor for the grain beyond the Lowcountry. That effort includes the first symposium on the rice, held this summer, that brought together top Charleston chefs, academics and growers like Coxe. It also includes a concerted effort to increase the availability of the rice.

The heritage food movement, which celebrates the flavor and history of vanishing American agriculture, has helped revive flat-chested turkeys and heirloom apples. The fledgling Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, which includes many of the South Carolina growers, hopes to tap into that renewed interest in artisan foods and locally grown, sustainable agriculture. A Norcross engineer who grows Carolina Gold in Arkansas is trying to expand the market, too.

Yet there's more to reviving Carolina Gold than wooing consumers with its delicately nutty taste and storied past. The challenges include the most basic demands of farming and food processing, as well as appealing to cooks who may balk at paying $5 a pound or more for white rice.

"It's been marketed more as a source of history than a food item," said Coxe, who supplemented his Carolina Plantation aromatic rice fields this year with a small crop of Carolina Gold. "We want to see if the food market is really there."

Before the Civil War, there was no question about that market. Carolina Gold, prized for its quality, made rice planters some of the wealthiest men in America. Rice fields stretched along the coast from north Florida to Wilmington, N.C. The grain was the bedrock of the region's cuisine, the Carolina Rice Kitchen, which encompassed rice puddings, breads and pirlaus as well as the migratory birds that fed on rice seed.

But the same boggy fields that aided rice cultivation helped doom it after the Civil War. Without slaves to work fields too soft for mechanical harvesting, the rice industry dwindled. A hurricane finished it off. The rice industry moved to Texas, Arkansas and other states, where firmer soil and higher-yielding varieties made farming more profitable. Carolina Gold was relegated to U.S. Department of Agriculture seed banks.

Still, over the years, Carolina Gold kept resurfacing in the state that gave it its name. Fifty years ago, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution Magazine wrote about Malcolm Lee McLeod's efforts to reintroduce the rice in the Lowcountry. A new, small combine, he said, would be the breakthrough needed to make it more than a hobby crop. Not long after, he gave up rice for timber. Now McLeod's grandson, Charleston pediatrician Malcolm Rhodes, is trying again on the same fields.

Savannah eye surgeons Dick and Richard Schulze have grown the rice for 20 years at Turnbridge Plantation near Bluffton, S.C., donating the small harvest to a South Carolina church to sell as a fund-raiser. This year, for the first time, they'll try to market directly to consumers.

"It's always been a labor of love," Richard Schulze said. "I've never run a spreadsheet to find out how much it costs me because I don't want to know."

Glenn Roberts, president and CEO of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation and owner of the boutique milling company Anson Mills, hopes that showcasing the rice in upscale restaurants will persuade consumers to seek it out. Higher demand will boost Carolina Gold's chance of surviving outside of seed banks and promote biodiversity, saving its unique genetic coding, Roberts said. In Atlanta, he supplies the rice to Bacchanalia and Woodfire Grill, known for their support of local, sustainable agriculture.

At Woodfire, owner/chef Michael Tuohy has used Carolina Gold in rice pudding and risotto-style with shrimp, clams and peas in spring and with roasted pork in fall.

"I'm really enamored not only with the result it produces, the quality of the rice, but the fact that it's so historic," Tuohy said.

Legend has it that Carolina Gold came from Madagascar in 1686 on a ship that pulled into Charleston harbor for repairs. Those few pounds of seed launched an industry that seemed particularly suited to the swampy lowlands and tidal rivers.

Establishing a more precise pedigree for Carolina Gold has been difficult. It's considered the ancestor of long-grain rice in the United States and shares genetic links with grains still widely cultivated. Researchers who have worked on mapping the rice genome are looking for ties to Indonesia, believed to be the original source of the Madagascar rice, perhaps in the fifth century, as well as for genetic markers that indicate the rice's flavor and starch properties. Rice growers need that information to boost efforts to get the grain into Slow Food USA's Ark of Taste, which promotes vanishing foodways, and to win over chefs known for championing artisanal foods.

"You can't just say 'Oh, yeah, this is an heirloom,' you have to be able to prove it," Roberts said. "We want to show there is a distinct attractive flavor and texture and there is a sense of comfort. It doesn't come from Uncle Ben's."

Besides establishing the rice's pedigree, growers face other challenges. There are just a few dozen acres of Carolina Gold in cultivation, a speck compared to the 3.4 million acres of other types of rice grown in the United States. Growers must keep increasing the amount of available seed and make sure it's a genetic match for Carolina Gold, to ensure the crop's future. Milling the delicate rice without breaking it into less desirable shorter pieces is another hurdle.

Like many of the Carolina-based rice growers, Mike Booth was captivated by the grain's place in history. But Booth, of Norcross, is taking a different approach. The Lowcountry Foods rice is grown and processed in Arkansas, a friendlier climate for modern rice cultivation and the home of business partner Marion Hartz, a longtime grower. Most of it is sold directly to consumers or in gourmet shops, as well as turning up in many Charleston restaurants.

At Slightly North of Broad, chef/owner Frank Lee uses Carolina Gold with regional dishes like roasted chicken with butter beans. Much of that rice comes from Arkansas because it's more readily available. Still, Lee admits to a fondness for Carolina-grown.

"The local is more unique," he says. "It's like a cross-eyed girl from next door. She's not a perfect blonde, but she's got wonderfully endearing qualities."

Booth hopes to increase crop yields enough to price Carolina Gold closer to conventional rice, and to develop more widespread uses for it — even in processed foods. He envisions Lowcountry specialties, like red rice made from Carolina Gold, packaged in microwaveable bags. He also sees a different kind of restaurant market than the upscale regional eateries that serve it now, one that would value a rice that could be prepared in advance and held without turning gummy.

"If we're going to do this as a commercial product, we have to do this where it's got a following on what its usefulness is," Booth said, "not that Great-Grandpappy served it."

Like the question of how to properly cook rice, whether Carolina Gold can move beyond a hobby crop sets off a lively debate. Even chefs wonder.

Louis Osteen, chef/owner of Louis's at Pawleys in Pawley's Island, S.C., uses plain old Uncle Ben's converted rice for regular menu items. He saves pricey Carolina Gold for specials, like a savory saffron rice pudding. Putting Carolina Gold in familiar dishes like red rice, or rice and gravy, might not go over well with customers accustomed to a certain texture in those dishes, he said.

"It's a little more glutinous somehow, a little more starchy," Osteen said.

Still, he's a fan.

"Carolina Gold tastes better," Osteen said.

At the rice foundation's first symposium in August, passion for the grain ran high. So did speculation about its future.

"It's great to see it grow," Coxe said, "but people need to consume it."

SOURCES FOR CAROLINA GOLD RICE

• Anson Mills' Carolina Gold is available at Star Provisions, 1198 Howell Mill Road, Atlanta. 404-365-0410. $4.50 for a 14-ounce bag.

• Carolina Plantation's Carolina Gold, white and brown, will be available after Nov. 1 at Viking Culinary Arts Center, 1745 Peachtree Road in Midtown. 404-745-9064. Online: www.carolinaplantationrice.com. Pricing hasn't been set.

• Lowcountry Foods' Carolina Gold: $4.99 for a 1-pound bag. 1-800-538-0003.

• Turnbridge Plantation Carolina Gold: Richard and Dick Schulze are trying direct sales this year; pricing hasn't been set. For information, write: Turnbridge Plantation, Route 1, Box 165, Hardeeville, SC 29927.

• Check the label: Rice giant Riviana Foods, with labels that include Mahatma and Carolina, brands its parboiled, or converted, rice as "Gold" for its amber color. Its Carolina Gold rice is a parboiled long-grain white rice, not the historical Carolina Gold.