Archive for the ‘Cuisine and Culture’ Category

Who eats what in various part of the globe

World dietary culture has three distinct traditional food habits based on staple cereal diets: (1) cooked-rice eaters of Eastern food culture, (2) wheat/barley-based breads/ loaves of Western and Australian food culture, and (3) sorghum/maize porridges of African and South American food culture. ¹

Rice is a staple food for millions of people in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Mongolia, east and south India, and Sri Lanka; whereas wheat or barley is a staple food in north and west India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and all of mid-Asia, Europe, North America, and Australia; while sorghum, maize, millets, and cassava are the staple crops of Africa, maize is the staple food in South America.

Food of the World

A typical diet of the Eastern World consists of boiled rice with many side dishes containing fermented and nonfermented soybean products, vegetables, pickles, fish, meat, and alcoholic beverages. The Western including Australian food culture has wheat or barley as the staple food, followed by milk and fermented milks (cheese, yoghurt, curd), meat and meat products (sausages, hams), and wine. The African dietary culture includes both fermented and nonfermented sorghum, maize, millets, cassava products, wild legume seeds, tubers, meat, milk products, and alcoholic beverages. The South American dietary culture includes both fermented and nonfermented maize products, meat, milk products, and alcoholic beverages. In Europe, America, and Australia, fruits, mostly grapes, are fermented into wine, whereas in Asia and Africa grapes are eaten fresh without processing into wine. Interestingly, the Himalayan dietary culture has both rice and wheat or barley or maize as the staple food along with varieties of ethnic, fermented and nonfermented foods prepared from soybeans, vegetables, bamboo, milk, meat, fish, alcoholic beverages, and wild edible plants.

Drinking animal milk is not part ofthe food culture of ethnic Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, and many Mongolian-origin races despite an abundance of cows in their regions, whereas, the Indians, Europeans, Semites, and the nomadic tribesmen of North Central Asia are traditionally milk drinkers . In Far East Asia, the soybean, called as the “cow of China”, is processed to make soy milk, tofu (soya curd), and fermented into a number of ethnic, fermented soybean products such as miso, shoyu, natto, kinema, thua nau, douchi, chungkokjang, tempe, and sufu. The Himalayan dietary culture is a fusion of the Hindu–Aryan culture and the Tibetan–Mongolian culture influenced by ancient Chinese cuisines with modifications based on ethnical and sensory preferences over a period of time . Countries bordering other countries haven closed cultural affinities, which has influenced the dietary cultures of many regions.

Indian food is spicy, and salt is added directly while cooking; seasonings such as soy sauce and monosodium glutamate (MSG) are never used. Chinese, Korean, andJapanese foods are not spicy, and use soy sauce for seasoning and other taste enhancers such as MSG. European and American foods are grilled, fried, roasted, or baked. In North America, sweet tomato-based ketchup is widely used as a condiment, while pickled vegetables such as cucumbers and onions, and relishes based on fruits, are common European accompaniments. African foods are also grilled or steamed, and hot. Eastern foods are more salty, spicy, and hotter than Western foods, which are less salty, more sweet, oily, nonspicy, and crispy. People have developed different methods of eating foods in the course of the history of dietary cultures. The three major methods of eating foods are using hands/fingers, chopsticks, and cutlery, which have remained the tradition among consumers worldwide.

- “The beasts have memory, judgment and all the faculties and passions of our mind, in a certain degree; but no beast is a cook.”

This quip by the eighteenth-century Scottish biographer James Boswell defines the essence of humanity in a way his contemporaries would have found humorous but also thought provoking. It is neither an immortal soul, reason, nor powers of abstraction that separate us from animals but the simple ability to use fire to transform our daily fare into something more palatable and nutritious.

THE ORIGINS OF COOKING

ancient cookery

We are nothing more than cooking animals. Archaeological evidence bears this out; it is our distant Neanderthal relatives, whose sites offer the earliest incontrovertible evidence of cooking. From those distant times down to the present, the food we eat and how it is prepared has become the decisive factor in the survival of both individuals and whole civilizations, so what better way to approach the subject of history than through the bubbling cauldron?

Growing and preparing food has also been the occupation of the vast majority of men and women who ever lived. To understand ourselves, we should naturally begin with the food that constitutes the fabric of our existence. Yet every culture arrives at different solutions, uses different crops and cooking methods, and invents what amount to unique cuisines. These are to some extent predetermined by geography, technology, and a certain amount of luck. Nonetheless every cuisine is a practical and artistic expression of the culture that created it. It embodies the values and aspirations of each society, its world outlook as well as its history.

Cooking is full of questions that science can help answer — questions you might not have even thought about asking but that can make you a better cook.

cosas de picar, cazuelas & pinchos

After Mohammed’s followers gave up gambling, pork, and alcohol following his death in 632, the spread of Islam reduced the number of places in the Arab world where alcohol was available.  In Muslim Spain, laws forbade the serving of alcoholic drinks except as an ingredient in cooking or an accompaniment to food.  Barkeepers began serving drinks in mugs capped with a lid, or tapa.

From the practice of placing small morsels of food on the lid came the Spanish tradition of tapas, small dishes of bar food that made drinking legitimate. As described by the Spanish food critic Alicia Rio, these tasty bites encouraged diners to admire the cook’s art and to engage in genial conversation.

Today, the small savory servings come in three types: cosas de picar (finger food) such as olives, pinchos served on toothpicks, and cazuelas (small servings), dishes topped with sauce.

Here is a list of a few of the many  processed foods developed in the 1920s and 1930s. You may be surprised to see  how long these familiar foods have been around.

Wonder Bread

WONDER BREAD (1921) The Taggart Baking Company of  Indianapolis, Indiana, came out with a one and a half pound loaf of white bread that contained preservatives to keep it fresh. In 1930 WONDER BREAD was sold as sliced bread (Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented the first machine that sliced and wrapped bread in 1928). From this new product came the expression, “The greatest thing since sliced bread.”

Quaker Oats

QUAKER OATS (1921) The Quaker Oats Company introduced quickcooking oatmeal (cooked in five minutes instead of twenty), and it became one of the United States’ first convenience foods.

Wheaties

WHEATIES (1924) The Washburn-Crosby Company introduced thiscereal that would become known as the Breakfast of Champions.

PeterPan Peanut Butter

PETER PAN PEANUT BUTTER (1928) Swift Packing Company introduced its first hydrogenated (chemical process that makes unsaturated fat more solid), homogenized peanut butter (the homogenization process of  keeping the peanut butter from separating) invented by J. L. Rosefield in 1922. In 1932 Rosefield produced his own brand and called it SKIPPY PEANUT BUTTER.

Rice Krispies

RICE KRISPIES (1928) This cereal, one of many by the Kellogg Company, had the popular saying, “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” first appear on its box in 1932. The three happy gnomes came along in 1933 to represent the sounds of the food. In Sweden these characters say, “Piff! Paff! Puff!” and in Germany they say, “Knisper! Knasper! Knusper!”

Gerber Baby Food

GERBER BABY FOOD (1929) Daniel Gerber began selling strained baby foods in cans to  grocery stores. Some mothers resisted buying the product until salt was added to it in 1931.Babies couldn’t tell the difference, but mothers who tasted their babies’ food could.

Birds Eye Frozen Food

BIRDS EYE FROSTED FOODS (1930) General Foods introduced Birds Eye Frosted Food. They were advertised as foods fresh frozen that traveled from plant to store to rental freezer (the only freezers available before home freezers were developed). These frosted foods were developed by Clarence Birdseye (father of the frozen-food industry) when he discovered during a visit to the Arctic in 1914 that fish pulled from icy waters froze rock hard and could be kept for weeks. When they were cooked, they tasted fresh. However, the system of buying and keeping frozen foods had some drawbacks for the consumer. In the 1930s and 1940s, people had to rent a space at a frozen-food locker plant to store their frosted food. When they wanted to use frozen food, they had to drive to the locker, making the system inconvenient until home freezers arrived in the 1950s.

Fritos Corn chips

FRITOS CORN CHIPS (1932) Ice-cream salesman Elmer Doolin ate lunch in a Texas sandwich shop that was selling fried corn chips (made with Mexican corn masa). He bought the recipe, the FRITOS name, and a potato ricer for one hundred dollars from Gustave Olguin, the owner of the shop. Doolin kept expanding his territory to sell FRITOS corn chips until he eventually merged his company in 1961 with the H. W. Lay Company, and the name Frito-Lay, Inc., was created. Soon many Americans loved to  “muncha buncha Fritos.”

RITZ Crackers

RITZ CRACKERS (1933) The National Biscuit Company developed around, buttery cracker and called it Ritz because it was so rich tasting.

Kraft Mac & Cheese

KRAFT MACARONI & CHEESE DINNER (1937) Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Dinner was introduced by National  Dairy Products and consisted  of grated American cheese and Tenderoni Macaroni in a box. It was advertised on the Kraft Music Hall radio show as “a meal for four in nine  minutes for an everyday price of nineteen cents.”

SPAM classic

SPAM & COMPANY (1937) This spiced ham product, introduced by the  George A. Hormel Company, would become the world’s largest-selling canned meat by 1942 when the United States entered World War II. Millions of cans of this fatty ground pork shoulder mixed with salt, ham,  sugar, and sodium nitrite were shipped overseas to feed the Allied troops.

Toll Chocochips

NESTLÉ CORPORATION’S CHOCOLATE MORSELS (1939) Nestlé developed chocolate morsels (chocolate chips) to go in Toll House cookies. In 1930 Ruth Wakefield invented the actual recipe for chocolate chip cookies in her Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. It happened by accident when Wakefield was making cookies for her customers, and she realized that she was out of baker’s chocolate. In a panic, she chopped up a semisweet chocolate bar and dumped the pieces into the cookie dough. After baking the cookies, she was surprised to see that the chocolate didn’t melt into the dough as she had expected, and the United States’ favorite cookie, the chocolate chip, was born. In 1939 she signed a contract with Nestlé to let them use her Toll House recipe on the back of their morsel packages.