A Rye Renaissance Is Coming

The many reasons to love the grain — beyond just how delicious it is

While wheat is by far the most widely grown grain in the United States, some would argue that the country was built on rye. Beginning in the 1620s, when the Dutch brought it to the colonies, this flavorful, hardy grain was a consequential crop.

Flourishing in the poor soil, rye fed people in colonial America, replenished land denigrated by tobacco growing and provided straw for animal bedding and for the manufacture of paper. But as the United States expanded west, wheat became king. It grew well and people liked the taste — and the advances of the Industrial Revolution, including the mechanization of agriculture and the introduction of the railroad, propelled it to the fore. Gone, too, was the once-ubiquitous rye whiskey, as Prohibition nearly put an end to rye’s last vestiges.

In 2023, it’s estimated that only 10.4 million bushels of rye were produced in the U.S., compared to wheat’s 1.8 billion — most of it winter rye, also called cereal rye, grown for food and forage but also, mostly, as cover crop to nurture and protect soil during the off-season. (Less common is spring rye, which does not require vernalization and generally produces lower yields, and neither are to be confused with annual ryegrass, also a cover crop, or perennial ryegrass, a lawn grass.) Still, despite its relegation to the status of minor grain, the diversity rye provides in cropping, culinary uses and soil health — the same reasons that it was so crucial in colonial times — is making it increasingly appealing today.