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“Do you suppose I want her lured away?”

UNIT 5.

CEREAL GRAINS

The cereal grains are the edible seeds products by certain plants of the grass family. They provide 20 to 80 per cent of the food energy in different countries of the world.

Cereal grains have many natural advantages as foods. They are nutritious. The grains are not bulky. They can be stored for long periods, are transformed cheaply long distances. They are readily processed to give highly refined raw foods.

Four general groups of foods are prepared from the cereal grains and these must be kept in mind by the grower and processor when quality is considered.

Baked products made from flour or meal include pan breads, loaf breads, pastries, pancakes and flat breads.

Milled grain products, made by removing the bran and usually the germ, include white rice, farina, wheat flour, corn-meal, hominy, corn grits, pearled barley, semolina for making macaroni products, prepared breakfast cereals, and soup, gravy and other thickenings.

Whole-grain products include rolled oats, brown rice, popcorn, shredded and puffed grain, breakfast foods, and home-ground meals made from wheat, corn, sorghum, and millet.

Beverages are made from fermented grain products (distilled and undistilled) and from boiled roasted grains.

Preference for a cereal depends on the form and flavour of the food made from it, its amount of nourishment and contribution to health, cost, its general availability, and the food habits of a people.

All cereal grains have high energy value, mainly from the starch fraction but also from the protein and fat. The mineral and vitamin composition varies considerably among the cereals and among varieties within species. It reflects the plates where they are grown, the conditions of storage, and the portion of the kernel that is utilized.

Cereal foods should be eaten and are eaten with meat, fish, vegetables, milk and other foods. The food value of cereals depends on their chemical composition and the availability of the constituents for use by the human body.

Quality standards in cereal grains have to do with the nature of the raw product, the ease of processing wholesome food from it, and the intended use.

Each class or subclass of grain is divided into several grades, which are based primarily on the minimum allowable weight per bushel and maximum limits of moisture, mixtures of various kinds, and damaged kernels.

Wheat is divided into seven market classes according to the botanical type, the area where it is grown or the major use. They are hard red spring (the usual protein content is 12—14 per cent) and hard red winter (9—13 per cent protein), the bread wheats: durum (about 11—14 per cent protein) for macaroni products;

soft red winter (10 per cent protein), the pastry wheats: red drum used as food, and mixed wheat the use of which depends on its composition.

Corn is classed as yellow, white and mixed.

There are special grades for flint corn. Both yellow and white corn are utilized for cornmeal, white corn is favoured for hominy and breakfast foods.

Starch, syrup, sugar and oil made from the different classes are similar in quality. Popcorn is graded on the basis of popping expansion, uniformity, and degree of maturity. Popcorn to be caramelized should pop into smooth mushroomshaped grain in contrast to the large "butterfly" type most popular for buttering. Yellow popcorn has become more popular than white.

Barley classes distinguish among eastern and western grown sixrowed barley. Subclasses for malting barley and special grades for two-rowed barley further specify market samples for uses requiring special qualities. Oats are classified by colour of the hull as white, red, gray, black, and mixed oats.

White oats are preferred for milling, but yellow and red oats also are used. Rice is graded as rough rice, brown or cargo, and milled rice (bran layers are removed).

There are special grades for unpolished milled rice sometimes called undermilled rice, parboiled milled rice, which was processed before milling by soaking, steaming and drying: and coated milled rice, which receives a coating of glucose and tale.

Grain quality has two general meanings — physical quality, which pertains to cleanliness and freedom from foreign seeds and trash, and processing quality, which means suitability for the use for which the grain is intended.

Physical quality sometimes partly describes the processing quality. Certain market classes are more suitable for the production of consumer food than others. Grain that has been stored for many years, or for a shorter period under poor conditions may be less suitable for food. The fat of such grain begins to break up into simpler compounds, fatty acids and glycerol.

Flour is made from the endosperm, the central part of the wheat kernel, 70 to 75 pounds of flour are commonly obtained from 1000 pounds of wheat. Varieties of wheat may differ markedly in millability. The white wheats as a group are perhaps the easiest to mill, and they produce a high yield of flour. White flour may be divided into two major classes — bread flour and pastry flour. Bread flour is used to make rolls and Vienna bread, as well as the common sliced, wrapped white bread. Pastry flour is used for cakes, cookies, piecrusts, doughnuts, crackers and biscuits.

Pastry flours have about 6 per cent to 9 per cent of protein. They are made from softer wheats compared to those used for bread flours. They generally are made from soft wheats in order to obtain the low-protein type necessary to make pastries and rich cakes.

The strength of soft-wheat flours may be measured by amount of water they absorb in a slightly acid, or weakly alkaline solution. Strength appears to be proportional to the amount absorbed.

Quality of pastry flours may be judged by the feel of a flour-water dough. A good pastry flour will be short one whose dough will stretch relatively little but breaks Instead. Good quality in a cookie flour is measured by (and is directly proportional to) the diameter of the cookies produced.

Semolina, a granular middlings or meal, is used to make spaghetti and macaroni products and noodles.

It is made from a very hard wheat (durum) which is suitable mainly for this purpose. Macaroni quality is measured by mixing and kneading the semolina with water forming the shape of a typical macaroni or a flat thin sheet, and drying it slowly. The best semolinas produce a translucent, golden, or amber product. The yellow colour is not known to be important nutritionally, however.

Quality in rice is evaluated according to kernel shape and uniformity, milling loss (broken kernels), and cooking characteristics. Cooking quality is judged by the water uptake, volume of cooked rice, starch and other solids in the residual liquid, degree of cohesiveness, cooking time, colour, flavour and aroma.

Professors of rice prefer different textures for different products. Those two package quick-cook rice and who produce canned products prefer the fluffy, dry whole-grain cooking types. Manufacturers of breakfast and baby foods prefer the firm, or chewy cooking types, in which the grains tend to stick together. Parboiled rice is produced by soaking rough rice, steaming or cooking it, and drying and hulling and milling.

For this rice, vitamin and mineral content are factors of quality, because 70 to 90 per cent of such nutrients in the rough rice are retained in the parboiled rice after milling.

Corn is processed by the wet milling process to make oil, starch, and syrup for food purposes. The most important quality characteristics of grain are full maturity, freedom from type of mold, spoilage, and animal or insect contamination, and if dried artificially, drying at temperatures below 135°. Yellow corn contains appreciable amount of vitamin A. White corn contains a trace.

High quality oats are matured, unweathered, free from foreign material and other grains, and of high weight per bushel. Manufacturers of rolled oats believe that grain high in protein and low in fat makes the best product. Rolled oats with a high fat content are chunky, become rancid easily, and produce party water porridge when cooked. Rye flour, generally mixed with relatively large amounts of wheat flour, is used to make specially bread. The starch liquefying enzyme must be present in the proper amount especially when relatively rye bread is baked.

Too little an amount results in a dry, brittle crumb and large hollow spaces. It is determined by measuring the thickness or viscosity of dot flour water pastes. Small scale bread-baking tests may be used to evaluate the flour. The bread is scored for general appearance, size, and crust colour of the loaf and grain and texture of the crumb.