Nuts & Seeds

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by Orleander, Feb 17, 2008.

  1. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    No. The alkali just allows the hulls to be easily separated from the kernels and removed. This makes the kernels more tender, easier to digest and/or process.

    I'm the same guy who can't digest oats and I also can't digest corn hulls. I can eat corn flakes and cornbread and other processed corn, but if I eat whole corn or corn on the cob, it just passes right through me whole, a rather uncomfortable and totally pointless experience.

    So hominy is perfect for people like me and my wife makes some wonderful Mexican dishes with hominy. (Like chiles rellenos set into a hominy casserole.) But apparently the increased tenderness has made it popular with everybody.
     
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  3. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    FR is "corn" the same thing they call corn here?

    Ie the little yellow things on a stwak?

    If so why would you preserve it, best way to eat it is to buy a fresh corn cob (with the husk still on it) and throw it on the barby or in the oven (or an open fire). It SOOO sweet and juicy

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  5. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    The Brits call it "maize," most cultures recognize that name even if it's not the one they use. It sounds like you're talking about the same thing. Yellow kernels arranged in rows around a roughly cylindrical "cob," with large leaves wrapped around it. The whole thing is about a foot long.

    Served the way you describe it, "on the cob," is popular. The traditional American way to cook it whole is to boil it, but grilling is becoming popular as the country is in the throes of a "let's barbecue everything" fad. But corn is a seasonal crop and fresh corn is not available all year round. When it's out of season you have to eat it canned or frozen.

    The alkali is not used as a preservative, but merely to remove the hulls. As I mentioned, some people like myself can't digest whole corn kernels so turning it into hominy by removing the hulls makes it possible for us to eat it at all. Hominy is also smoother and easier to work with.

    I'm from the Southwest where we have Mexican traditions so we often eat our corn in other ways. The most ubiquitous is tortillas, which are thin, flat, round patties of corn flour baked or grilled, and served hot to fill the place in the meal which bread occupies in European cuisine. Roll them up with pork or chicken and other ingredients inside to make soft tacos, fill them and fold them in half then deep fry them to make hard tacos, completely enclose the filling and cover them with salsa and cook them that way to make enchiladas, the recipes are endless. Tamales are made by rolling pork, chicken or cheese in a thick corn flour (masa), wrapping the whole thing in a couple of corn leaves, tying it up with string and steaming a pot full of them for an hour or so. There are also smaller, thicker corn tortillas called gorditas that are stuffed with hot filling. Tortillas are also eaten as a side dish like bread, with salsa or butter.

    You can also use goat meat, which is incredibly tender, if you can get it. People in Texas make Mexican recipes with beef instead of pork because they are cattle ranchers, but that's not very authentic, not half as tasty, and we call it "Tex-Mex." (To be fair they also raise cattle in the northeastern states of Mexico that are close to Texas, but many Mexicans can't afford to eat beef.)

    Hominy is a common ingredient in more elaborate Mexican dishes. The ones I've described are simple and easy (although labor-intensive) and the staples of fast food joints.

    Larger, sturdier tortillas can be made out of wheat flour, and are filled and rolled over on the ends to make burritos. Of course Mexicans also eat bread and wheat-flour pastry.

    Since corn is our native grain in America we eat it in many ways. Highly processed corn flakes are a popular breakfast cereal, cornmeal bread or "cornbread" is a side dish with butter and honey, and hominy "grits" is a Southeastern dish I've never tried.

    We use cornmeal to dredge chicken or fish for deep frying. One of my favorite meals is deep fried catfish with "hush puppies," which are blobs of the extra corn batter deep fried by themselves. Legend says they're called that because fisherman would fry up the remnants of their batter and give it to their dogs after their own meal to settle them down.
     
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  7. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    have you ever had creamed corn? Its kind of like baby food

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    but it tastes delicious in jaffles

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  8. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    It is baby food.

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  9. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    tates nice though

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    OH and BBQ's are our culture so dont knock them

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    they are about all we have

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  10. Walter L. Wagner Cosmic Truth Seeker Valued Senior Member

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    Popcorn originated in Mesoamerica not long after corn was domesticated. "Popping corn 'ears' that are 5600 years old have been found in New Mexico." http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_did_the_first_popcorn_seed_evolve_as_life_became_what_it_is_today

    I'm sure that there are other and better references. I read 30 years ago that popcorn ears were dated to 4,000 years before present.

    I'm wondering how much popcorn was being grown compared to regular eating corn.
     
  11. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    what's a jaffle?
    I use it in soup and cornbread.
     
  12. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    its like a toasted sandwige but with slight differences

    Firstly the bread is buttered on the outside (to stop it sticking)
    Secondly its put in a press that crushes it into a triangle

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  13. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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  14. Spud Emperor solanaceous common tater Registered Senior Member

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    Koala turds often contain seeds and a whole new tree can grow from a single cigar.

    Now about cockatoos.
    Orleander loves a cockatoo.

    Where to from here S.A.M?
     
  15. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    To keep the thread on topic while still replying to this post...

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    Cockatoos and most psittacines, as well as many if not most other species of birds, love fruit. So do other species of animals. In fact, the development of angiosperms (plants that reproduce by extruding flowers which generally turn into fruits with seeds inside) triggered the evolution of entire new types of animals which were adapted to climbing trees (or flying up into them) and obtaining fruit. Primates come to mind, we evolved from sloths which evolved from shrews, which were one of the very first mammals that had the ability to climb trees. Flying insects also proliferated in the age of angiosperms.

    Having their fruits eaten was a tremendous advantage for the angiosperms. While of course some species of animals eventually evolved that could break open the seed hulls and digest the contents, most cannot--or don't bother because it's too much work. Animals that eat fruit wander off and defecate, often quite a distance from the parent tree or other plant. This spreads the seeds much farther than falling or even being blown by the wind, and allows plant species to colonize new areas to find out whether they're hospitable.

    Birds are obviously the best at this since their flights cover a lot of area and they often defecate from the air, spreading the seeds over a larger patch of ground so one of them might germinate. I don't know about cockatoos because as far as I know there are no feral colonies of them in America, but the colonies of other species of feral parrots in the Los Angeles region, such as Amazons and conures, have territories that cover many square miles--more than one city. A conure could eat the fruit from the cultivated tropical ornamental tree in a suburban yard in Sierra Madre and dump the seeds in a vacant lot in El Monte, spreading the range of the species as birds have been doing for tens of millions of years.
     
  16. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    so is it thanks to squirrels that there are so many oak trees? I mean, do they really bury acorns all over the place?
     

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