Rice-A-Roni
pilaf-like boxed food mix
Rice-A-Roni (a portmanteau of rice and macaroni) is an American boxed food mix that consists of rice, vermicelli pasta, and seasonings. To prepare, the rice and pasta are browned in butter, then water and seasonings are added and simmered until absorbed. It is a product of Quaker Oats Company, a subsidiary of PepsiCo.
History
In 1890, Italian-born immigrant Domenico DeDomenico moved to California, where he established a fresh produce store. A successful businessman, he married Maria Ferrigno from Salerno, Italy. Back home, her family owned a pasta factory, so in 1912 she persuaded him to establish a similar business in the Mission District of San Francisco. The enterprise was "Gragnano Products, Inc." It delivered pasta to Italian stores and restaurants in the area.
DeDomenico's sons, Vince (1915–2007), Tom, Paskey, and Anthony, worked with him. In 1934, Paskey changed the name to "Golden Grain Macaroni Company". Tom's wife, Lois, was inspired by the pilaf recipe she received from Armenian immigrant Pailadzo Captanian, to create a dish of rice and macaroni, which she served at a family dinner.
“Rice-A-Roni” enters the record as pilaf-like boxed food mix. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Rice-A-Roni, pilaf-like and boxed can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7322973. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1890, 1912, 1915 and 2007.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rice-A-Roni” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.