της ελιάς

El mojo de ajo

2012-01-30T21:00:00.000-08:00

Para los paisanos el ponerle un diente de ajo a la comida ya amerita mención especial en la descripción de la receta y tres dientes es al mojo de ajo. Aquí cerca hay un restaurante hondureño de mariscos y dicho y hecho. Pedí un filete al mojo de ajo y me trajeron tilapia frita cubierta con una salsa de tomate, que aunque tendría ajo, este no era ni por mucho el elemento central de la salsa. Solo por no quedarme con la duda le pregunte a la mesera que si se había equivocado de platillo y me confirmo que la salsa era de ajo.

Mi interpretación es que toman una carta canónica de platillos que se suponen forman el menú de un restaurante de mariscos y lo surten con cualquier receta que conozca el cocinero.

En este articulo incluyo dos ejemplos de camarones al mojo de ajo (aclarando: los videos no van como ejemplos del deber ser, sino como ilustración del uso inapropiado del termino. De hecho, la señora de los camarones a la mexicana comenta que de al mojo de ajo la receta solo tiene el nombre. Aparte de eso las recetas y la técnica se ven buenas). Una son camarones adobados y la otra camarones a la mexicana. Hay algunos temas que se repiten, i.e., la sustitución del aceite de oliva por mantequilla y la minimización del uso del ajo que de ser la estrella se le relega a simplemente un ingrediente menor de las recetas.

Ya no estamos hablando de la cocina criolla de las haciendas y los conventos, sino de la comida continental de los hoteles y los centros turísticos. No es mera ignorancia, sino el abuso de un terminología para manifestar otras circunstancias y satisfacer otros paladares.

Hay varias razones para la degeneración, mutación si se quiere, de la cocina mexicana. Una es que algunos ingredientes ya no existen. Cuando era niño, pasábamos el verano en Veracruz, y en el Pánuco, en el muelle donde había que esperar el chalan para cruzar el río, vendedores ambulantes vendían unos filetes de pescado empanizado que no tenían igual en el mundo entero. Eran de una carne blanca prístina y firme, y los filetes tenían un grosor como de una pulgada. Ese pescado, como todos los peces de agua dulce en México, esta ahora extinto. Ahora pura Tilapia, maravilla de la ingeniería israelí, y bagre de granja. Pescados genética mente manipulados y alimentados de soja y maíz, siendo que el grano no es alimento natural del pez.

La industrialización y globalización han desvirtuado el carácter de los ingredientes tradicionales. El Jalapeño era un chile dulzón ligeramente picante, pero ahora según te toque puede resultar extremadamente picante, casi del nivel de un habanero, o por el contrario completamente insípido. De manera similar, el serrano que era un chile bravo, ahora es por lo general o de sabor suave o de plano también insípido. Ni estos jalapeños son veracruzanos, no los serranos de la sierra, sino quien sabe que variedades traídas de quien sabe donde, cultivadas usando ve tú a saber que químicos.

Esto es un problema del mundo, no solo de México. Al final de la película GoodFellas el personaje de Ray Liotta se queja de que cuando pide espagueti a la Marinara le traen fideos con salsa de tomate.

Ingredientes:

1/2 barra de mantequilla (1/2 stick of butter)
2 jitomates medianos (2 med. plum tomatoes)
1/3 - 1/2 tz. de cebolla picada (1/3 - 1/2 c. of choped onion)
3 dientes de ajo picados ( 3 minced garlic cloves)
1/2 tz. de cilantro picado (1/2 c. of choped cilantro "corriander")
1/2 kilo de camarones limpios sin cascaron, vena y cabeza ( 1 lb. of clean shrimp with out shell, vein and head)

sal y pimienta al gusto (salt and pepper to taste)
arroz blanco (white rice)

La tía Emma tiene sus restaurantes en Chicago llamados la chaparrita #1 y la chaparrita # 2

El allioli

2012-01-27T19:03:00.000-08:00

El allioli (del catalán-valenciano all i oli, 'ajo y aceite'),¹ ajolio (en Aragón), ajoaceite (en la zona castellanoparlante de la Comunidad Valenciana, Murcia o Albacete), ajiaceite o ajaceite es una salsa típica de la gastronomía mediterránea (valenciana, catalana, balear, murciana, granadina...) formada por la emulsión de aceite de oliva y ajo.²

Suele emplearse como condimento en algunos de los platos, en especial de preparaciones a base de pescado o marisco. a veces como una salsa servida por separado. Forma parte de las salsas a base de ajo. Es frecuente en regiones e islas del arco mediterráneo entre España, Francia e Italia, que va desde Granada a Calabria, pasando por Cartagena (Murcia), Alicante (Comunidad Valenciana, Cataluña),³ Provenza (donde se denomina Le Grand Aïoli) o Liguria. En zonas de África se elabora una preparación muy similar denominada Toum. Entre estos platos podríamos citar el universal arroz a banda y su caldero que lo acompaña.

mayonesa

2012-01-27T18:54:00.000-08:00

Sauce Mayonnaise

Dans votre bol en porcelaine,
Un jaune d´oeuf étant placé,
Sel, poivre, du vinaigre à peine,
Et le travail est commencé.
L´huile se verse goutte a goutte,
La mayonnaise prend du corps,
Épaissisant sans qu´on s´en doute
En flots luisants jusques aux bords.
Quand vous jugez que l´abondance
Peut suffire à votre repas,
Au frais mettez-là par prudence
Tout est fini — N´y touchez pas!

La mayonesa o mahonesa es una salsa emulsionada fría elaborada principalmente a base de huevo entero y aceite vegetal batidos. Generalmente se la sazona con sal, zumo de limón y/o vinagre. Se trata de una salsa de origen español emparentada culinariamente con el alioli. Hoy en día es empleada en multitud de platos internacionales como acompañamiento, por regla general de hortalizas y pescados. Su origen ha sido disputa de eruditos desde comienzos del siglo XX. En la actualidad se sigue haciendo a mano —con batidora, ya no al mortero— en España, Italia y Francia, pero en el resto del mundo occidental el consumo de esta salsa es mayoritariamente de origen industrial3 y se asocia principalmente a la comida rápida

Los ingredientes principales

Los ingredientes básicos para elaborar mayonesa son: aceite, yemas de huevo, vinagre y sal.

Se pueden dar variaciones en su composición, por ejemplo se puede utilizar cualquier tipo de aceite (girasol, semillas o de oliva de diferentes graduaciones), incluso se pueden mezclar para darle un toque diferente de sabor.

Se pueden usar los huevos enteros o sólo las yemas.
En lugar de vinagre se pude usar zumo de limón.
También esta salsa se puede aligerar más con otro líquido.
Las proporciones de los distintos ingredientes son, por cada litro de aceite, cuatro yemas de huevo; el vinagre y la sal son al gusto.

Cómo se elabora:

Son muchos los grandes escritores culinarios que dan receta de cómo se elabora la mahonesa. Sea como sea el fundamento pasa por emplear unas yemas de huevo que se baten, cuando están bien trabadas se continúa batiendo mientras que poco a poco se añade aceite vegetal con una alcuza. Durante el proceso de batido de las yemas (antes de verter el aceite) se añade un poco de zumo de limón o vinagre. Los vinagres a veces poseen productos químicos que falsean la elaboración de la mahonesa y eso puede hacer preferible emplear zumo de limón o un agraz. Algunos autores mencionan una pequeña porción de leche para "aligerar" la salsa final.²⁴

En la preparación al estilo tradicional, se prefiere el aceite de oliva y existen motivos sanitarios que también avalan su uso; en el caso de utilizar aceites de oliva monovarietales, es recomendable hacerla con arbequina, empeltre, cornicabra u otros. Está desaconsejada la variedad picual ya que puede amargar en exceso, así como otras variedades fuertes. Fuera del área mediterránea este aceite es escaso y se recurre a otros aceites vegetales, como el aceite de girasol, lo mismo sucede a nivel industrial, en que para aligerar los costes se suele emplear una mezcla de aceites vegetales de diferentes especies. Aún así, se encuentran en España marcas que la venden hecha de aceite de oliva solamente y algunas más que lo combinan con otro aceite. En algunos tratados se aconseja el uso de aceite de maíz en países donde el aceite de oliva es practicamente desconocido.³⁵ Lo importante es que los ingredientes estén a la misma temperatura y ésta debería ser cercana a los 20 °C. Algunos autores anglosajones prefieren que no exista traza de la clara del huevo en las yemas.³⁵ Sus recetas suelen indicar el número de yemas de huevo, por esta razón hay recetas de «dos yemas», de «tres» y de «cuatro». Algunos especialistas catalanes reivindican el uso de huevo entero (yema y clara)³⁷ además del aceite de oliva.³⁷ Tradicionalmente, estas mahonesas caseras se hacen con un huevo, ya que la cantidad resultante con dos es ya demasiado grande para poderla emulsionar con una batidora de brazo y aún más con un mortero. Si hay que hacer más cantidad, se repita la operación más veces. La cantidad de aceite suele ser intuitiva, según el gusto particular y la cantidad que se quiera obtener. El color de la mahonesa puede variar ligeramente, siempre será clara, amarillenta o verdosa, dependiendo del tipo de aceite utilizado.³⁷

Técnicamente se trata de una emulsión de materias grasas con proteínas, en la que el 80% de su composición en volumen es aceite.³⁸ ³⁹ A la familia de este tipo de salsas se le denomina salsas emulsionadas. Al batir las yemas de huevo, las gotas de aceite se van rompiendo en gotas de menor dimensión y quedan en suspensión dentro de la proteína. En los procesos industriales se le añade emulsificantes (denominados también surfactantes). Durante su elaboración, la fase inicial debe ir haciéndose lentamente, y progresivamente ir batiendo con más fuerza a medida que se va añadiendo aceite.³⁸ El aceite debe irse añadiendo poco a poco durante el batido.

Si se añaden ingredientes complementarios a una mahonesa se puede obtener una gama alta de variadas salsas derivadas: andaluza, italiana, tártara, verde, cambridge, india, etcétera. En algunas ocasiones se añade nata montada para modificar la textura final. En otros casos, se emplea edulcorantes con el objeto de modificar su sabor, por regla general azúcar. La industria alimentaria emplea a menudo como saborizante glutamato monosódico.³

En lugares donde esta salsa no forma parte de la cocina tradicional como Estados Unidos, las mahonesas rara vez se hacen a mano y las salsas industriales nunca contienen aceite de oliva (o en muy raras ocasiones). A menudo incluso tampoco huevo, sino huevina o yemas, o añaden otras proteínas lácteas. En la cocina francesa, que a veces utiliza aceites más insípidos que el de oliva, como el aceite de colza, se ven en la obligación de aromatizarla con mostaza. También se hace para facilitar la emulsión (la mostaza actúa como agente tensioactivo debido a su contenido de isotiocianatos). Sin embargo, en la extensión y polarización de la mahonesa vía Francia, en la época en que su cocina estaba de moda, nunca fraguó la adición de mostaza, con lo que ésta no se incluye en las mahonesas de ningún otro país. Por otra parte, aunque se haya popularizado en Francia el empleo de la mostaza en la mahonesa, la gastronomía francesa la considera como una variante llamada salsa rémoulade.

Existen dos formas de elaboración, que son a mano o con la batidora eléctrica. En cualquier caso, se debe procurar que los huevos y el aceite estén a la misma temperatura, y que sea más o menos a temperatura ambiente.

Elaboración manual:

Cascamos los huevos y echamos las yemas en el bol, añadimos un poco de vinagre y sal y batimos bien.
Cuando van cogiendo cuerpo, añadimos el aceite a chorro muy fino, para que se vaya produciendo la emulsión.
Una vez elaborada, la ponemos a punto de sal, la tapamos y la guardamos siempre en el frigorífico.

Elaboración con la batidora eléctrica:

Para hacer la mayonesa mecánicamente, se echa en un recipiente estrecho, el huevo, el vinagre y el aceite, procurando no romper las yemas.

Al mover la batidora, primero batimos las yemas y vamos subiendo el brazo poco a poco hasta que emulsione la mezcla.
Por último ponemos a punto de sal si hiciese falta.

Precauciones

Hay que tomar medidas en cuanto a las intoxicaciones: procurar que no caiga nada de cáscara en la mezcla, desechar los huevos sucios por fuera, elaborarla sólo para utilizarla inmediatamente y en caso de conservarla, hacerlo en un recipiente bien tapado y en la cámara frigorífica.

La mahonesa emplea yemas de huevo crudas en su elaboración y es por esa razón por la que existe cierto riesgo de contraer salmonelosis si no se tienen las debidas precauciones. La salsa no debe guardarse en sitios muy calientes debido a que perdería su consistencia, pero tampoco debe guardarse en sitios demasiado fríos ya que la mezcla coalesce. Es por esta razón por la que no debe guardarse en frigorífico, sino en un sitio fresco. El correcto almacenamiento en lugares frescos con temperaturas de 18-22 °C 24 horas antes de ser metida en el frigorífico protege de la proliferación de Salmonella spp.⁴⁴ y debe ser consumida en horas, o escasos días después.⁴⁵ Las intoxicaciones alimentarias producidas por la mahonesa casera suelen provenir del empleo de huevos contaminados y del empleo de poca cantidad de ácidos orgánicos en su elaboración, bien sea vinagre (ácido acético) o zumo de limón (ácido cítrico), con el objeto de disminuir el pH de la mezcla por debajo de 3,3 y que la bacteria Salmonella enteritidis no prospere.⁴⁶ Sobre el papel de los ácidos orgánicos, se ha demostrado que el uso de aceite de oliva previene mejor la proliferación de la salmonella frente a otros aceites como el de girasol, debido a la mayor presencia de ácidos en su composición.⁴⁷ La acidez es un punto crítico en la microbiología de la mahonesa y es uno de los puntos de medida acerca de su calidad sanitaria y supervivencia como alimento consumible.⁴⁸ El ácido acético (vinagre) es un germicida más potente que el ácido cítrico (zumo de limón).⁴⁴ La mayoría de los casos de salmonelosis se producen por mahonesas caseras, en raras ocasiones un producto elaborado ha mostrado contaminación.⁴⁹

Los dos microorganismos responsables de la destrucción de las propiedades de la mahonesa son la levadura Zygosaccharomyces bailii (produce que la mahonesa se corte y que tenga un olor a levaduras) y la bacteria Lactobacillus fructivorans⁴⁶ Las bacterias y levaduras que prosperan en la mahonesa deben soportar pH de 4 (entorno ácido). Se ha demostrado incluso una mejora en la vida media de la mahonesa si se inoculaban bifidobacterias durante su procesamiento.⁵⁰ El ataque por moho en la mahonesa es superficial y ocurre tan solo en presencia de suficiente oxígeno. Las condiciones de acidez del producto por debajo de un pH de 4,4 hacen que no puedan sobrevivir la mayoría de los tipos de bacterias. Es por esta razón por la que las salsas de mahonesa comerciales suelen tener un "punto de acidez".⁴⁶ No obstante hay estudios donde Escherichia coli 0157:H7 ha mostrado ser resistente a estas condiciones.⁵¹ Existen casos de shigelosis debidos a proliferación de la bacteria Shigella.⁵²

La mahonesa es una mezcla de materias grasas (aceite y huevo) con proteínas de origen animal (huevo) y esto puede afectar a aquellas personas que tengan problemas con el colesterol. En la actualidad se está investigando la elaboración industrial de mahonesas con bajo contenido de colesterol.⁴¹ En algunos casos las personas con alergia a alimentos pueden tener problemas alérgicos con las proteínas del huevo.

Desembarco en el puerto de Mahón

Se sabe por diversos autores que con anterioridad al año 1756 no se conocía esta salsa, ni es mencionada en ningún libro de cocina europeo.² ⁸ En este año se produce la invasión francesa de la isla de Menorca. La receta más parecida proviene de un libro de cocina español que data del siglo XIV titulado: Llibre de Sent Soví de autor desconocido y la describe en lengua catalana, llamándola all-y-oli.⁹ ⁴ Esta salsa balear tradicional que se utilizaba también en el resto de la Corona de Aragón.⁶
Cuando el 18 de abril de 1756 el Mariscal Richelieu y sus allegados atacan el Fuerte de San Felipe de Mahón e invaden la isla, tienen la ocasión de probar la salsa all-y-oli con gran sorpresa. Copiaron la receta de su elaboración y la llevaron a Francia, allí se dio a conocer. Allí, por cuestión de gusto le quitaron el ajo y al resultado lo denominaron mahonnaise (de Mahón).² ⁵ ⁸ El cocinero de Louis François Armand du Plessis, duque de Richelieu, dice que la creó para celebrar la victoria del duque sobre los británicos en el puerto de Mahón en Menorca y que en honor de dicho pueblo se le puso el nombre. El historiador Lorenzo Lafuente menciona el siguiente diálogo:¹⁰

El duque de Richelieu, preocupado con el plan de ataque general, vagaba cierta noche por las calles de Mahón, sin acordarse de tomar alimento, y apremiándole el hambre, entróse muy tarde en una fonda para pedir de comer. Al decirle el fondista que ya no quedaba nada, le rogó lo mirara bien, y registrando aquél la cocina, halló unas piltrafas de carne, de ingrato aspecto, diciéndole:
—Señor, es lo único que hay, y no es decente para vuestra Excelencia
—Arréglalo como puedas, que en tiempo de hambre no hay pan duro.
Hízolo así el fondista, y se lo presentó con una salsa que fue tan grata al duque, que hubo de preguntar qué salsa era aquella tan sabrosa.
—Señor, es simplemente una salsa de huevo.
—Pues dígame cómo se hace que lo voy a apuntar.
Así lo hizo, y le dijo al fondista que en lo sucesivo se llamaría salsa a la mahonesa. Con ese nombre la dio a conocer cuando regresó a Francia.

El origen menorquín de la salsa está fundamentado en la invasión de la ciudad de Mahón, y parece justificado por diversos autores.⁸ ² ⁵ ¹¹ La disputa entre los historiadores se centra en saber si el origen de la salsa precursora era anterior o se trata de una simple improvisación de un cocinero. El concepto de salsa que tenían en la Edad Media no es el mismo que el que poseemos hoy en día. Los procedimientos para espesar las salsas consistían en añadir migas de pan (lo que se denominaba porra), frutos secos (almendras, por ejemplo), o yemas de huevo. Todo fue algo que se fue conociendo poco a poco. Lo que es muy cierto es que los textos medievales, así como el Libre de Sent Soví no hablan de salsas emulsionadas. Algunos autores por el contrario afirman que la salsa se inventó en la propia ocupación francesa de Mahón, al mezclar aceite con huevos.¹¹

En el mundo anglosajón se cree que la salsa es de origen francés, algunos autores afirman que se denomina así debido al nombre de su inventor, un tal General MacMahon,³⁵ esta creencia está muy arraigada sobre todo en Irlanda. Otros defienden que la palabra de origen inglés: "mayonnaise" es una corrupción de "mahonnaise".³⁶ La primera mención en la literatura anglosajona se hace en 1840 por William Makepeace Thackeray. En algunos países de latinoamérica es una salsa introducida desde los Estados Unidos y es de ahí de donde popularmente se considera que es. Sin embargo en otros (particularmente en la Argentina) debido a la gran oleada de inmigrantes italianos y españoles se conoce su origen e incluso en décadas pasadas solía elaborarse de manera casera, costumbre que subsiste, aunque limitadamente. ^{[cita requerida]}

Hoy sabemos que es antiquísima y coexiste desde siglos con el alioli, que en el Mediterráneo fue considerada la salsa de los ricos, pues tenía huevo, y que los pobres se contentaban con el alioli que no lleva huevo.

Mayonesa casera

INGREDIENTES

1 huevo
1 limon
1 cucharada de ajo
1 cucharadita de mostaza
aceite
sal y pimienta

PREPARACION

Poner en la licuadora el huevo, licuar un par de segundos y agregar el ajo, una pisca de sal y pimienta y agregar el limón. Luego seguir licuando y usando la tapa central de la licuadora para echar un chorro muy delgado de aceite mientras licua hasta que la mayonesa espese.

Una receta basica, pero facil de hacer y mucho mas sana y rica que las mayonesas de sobre.

Y que pasa si se te corta? tengo el problema que mi licuadora solo tiene dos velocidades y son muy fuertes.. por tanto se me corta la mayonesa, ¿como la puedo arreglar si me vuelve a pasar?

Existe un mito peruano que dice que la mayonesa se corta cuando uno esta con las manos calientes o estas de mal humor.

La razones de porque se corta pueden ser:
... estas licuando demasiado el huevo la primera vez solo hay que darle un golpe del boton
... el vaso de la licuadora tiene que estar seco y limpio
... estas licuando de mas despues de que esta espeso
... la velocidad tambien es importante, si puedes conseguir otra licuadora seria lo mejor

Hay una forma de arreglar mayonesa cortada, no queda igual que la mayonesa recien echa pero si mejora bastante. Es usando otro huevo y echando nuevamente la mayonesa cortada dentro de la licuadora limpia y en un chorro constante, y seguir echando mientras espese. Un chorrito de limon ayuda a espesar.

Si emulsiona correctamente, se consigue una textura cremosa y un aspecto homogéneo, pero si no emulsiona se dice que se "corta" y presenta una textura más líquida y un aspecto aceitoso. El empleo de emulgentes en la industria alimenticia evita esta posibilidad. Uno de los factores que hacen más probable que una mahonesa se corte, es el empleo de yemas de huevos recién sacadas del frigorífico. Se debe recordar que las yemas posean la misma temperatura ambiente que el aceite. Para ello es necesario esperar a que los huevos tomen la temperatura ambiente.

En los casos en los que una salsa se ha "cortado" existen posibilidades de rescatarla. Técnicamente se necesita re-emulsificar la mezcla de nuevo. Una de las mejores formas es batirla de nuevo para que las partículas de aceite vuelvan a tomar su posición y tamaño. Para ello se emplea una yema nueva y se va batiendo fuertemente mientras se vierte, poco a poco la mezcla "cortada". Durante este proceso la mezcla debe ligarse. Esta operación hace que la nueva proteína ayude a emulsificar la mezcla anterior.

el perejil

2012-01-13T12:26:00.000-08:00

Pasan los años y nuestros riñones siempre están Filtrando la sangre Quitando la Sal, el Veneno, Cualquier cosa dañina y que entre en nuestro sistema.

Con el tiempo la sal se acumula y esto necesita un tratamiento de limpieza, y... ¿cómo vamos a Deshacernos de esto?

Es muy sencillo, primero tome un puñado de perejil y lávelo muy bien, después córtelo en pedazos pequeños y póngalo en una olla y agregue agua limpia (1 litro) y hiérvalo por diez minutos, déjelo enfriar, cuélelo en una botella limpia y póngalo en El refrigerador.

Tome un vaso diariamente y Verá que toda la sal y el veneno Acumulado empieza a salir de su riñón al orinar.

El Perejil es conocido como el mejor tratamiento para limpiar los riñones y es natural!

Propiedades y Elementos Nutritivos del Perejil:

Es un potente antioxidante: rejuvenece la piel
Contiene betacaroteno
Rico en minerales como calcio, fósforo, hierro y azufre.
Rico en clorofila: combate el mal aliento, ayuda a depurar el cuerpo de toxinas y grasa excesiva.
Rico en vitamina C: previene el cáncer, los problemas cardíacos y las cataratas e infecciones, y ayuda a fortalecer el sistema inmune del cuerpo.
Por ser rico en calcio, es muy adecuado en dietas para combatir y prevenir la osteoporosis y durante la menopausia. Es muy benéfico para los niños y deportistas.
Es diurético: ayuda a eliminar líquidos en forma natural. Por esta cualidad se utiliza en dietas para tratar hipertensión y para la salud de los riñones.
Su alto contenido en vitaminas y minerales lo hace ideal para combatir y prevenir anemia, anorexia, debilidad general, fatiga, cansancio físico y mental.
Ideal para fortalecer el cabello y las uñas.
Muy bueno para combatir problemas de la piel.
Útil contra las úlceras

Del perejil se extrae un líquido aceitoso llamado Apiol, el cual se usa contra las fiebres intermitentes y las neuralgias.

fat again

2012-01-13T09:15:00.000-08:00

The Fat Trap, By TARA PARKER-POPE

NYTimes December 28, 2011

For 15 years, Joseph Proietto has been helping people lose weight. When these obese patients arrive at his weight-loss clinic in Australia, they are determined to slim down. And most of the time, he says, they do just that, sticking to the clinic’s program and dropping excess pounds. But then, almost without exception, the weight begins to creep back. In a matter of months or years, the entire effort has come undone, and the patient is fat again. “It has always seemed strange to me,” says Proietto, who is a physician at the University of Melbourne. “These are people who are very motivated to lose weight, who achieve weight loss most of the time without too much trouble and yet, inevitably, gradually, they regain the weight.”

Anyone who has ever dieted knows that lost pounds often return, and most of us assume the reason is a lack of discipline or a failure of willpower. But Proietto suspected that there was more to it, and he decided to take a closer look at the biological state of the body after weight loss.

Beginning in 2009, he and his team recruited 50 obese men and women. The men weighed an average of 233 pounds; the women weighed about 200 pounds. Although some people dropped out of the study, most of the patients stuck with the extreme low-calorie diet, which consisted of special shakes called Optifast and two cups of low-starch vegetables, totaling just 500 to 550 calories a day for eight weeks. Ten weeks in, the dieters lost an average of 30 pounds.

At that point, the 34 patients who remained stopped dieting and began working to maintain the new lower weight. Nutritionists counseled them in person and by phone, promoting regular exercise and urging them to eat more vegetables and less fat. But despite the effort, they slowly began to put on weight. After a year, the patients already had regained an average of 11 of the pounds they struggled so hard to lose. They also reported feeling far more hungry and preoccupied with food than before they lost the weight.

While researchers have known for decades that the body undergoes various metabolic and hormonal changes while it’s losing weight, the Australian team detected something new. A full year after significant weight loss, these men and women remained in what could be described as a biologically altered state. Their still-plump bodies were acting as if they were starving and were working overtime to regain the pounds they lost. For instance, a gastric hormone called ghrelin, often dubbed the “hunger hormone,” was about 20 percent higher than at the start of the study. Another hormone associated with suppressing hunger, peptide YY, was also abnormally low. Levels of leptin, a hormone that suppresses hunger and increases metabolism, also remained lower than expected. A cocktail of other hormones associated with hunger and metabolism all remained significantly changed compared to pre-dieting levels. It was almost as if weight loss had put their bodies into a unique metabolic state, a sort of post-dieting syndrome that set them apart from people who hadn’t tried to lose weight in the first place.

“What we see here is a coordinated defense mechanism with multiple components all directed toward making us put on weight,” Proietto says. “This, I think, explains the high failure rate in obesity treatment.”

While the findings from Proietto and colleagues, published this fall in The New England Journal of Medicine, are not conclusive — the study was small and the findings need to be replicated — the research has nonetheless caused a stir in the weight-loss community, adding to a growing body of evidence that challenges conventional thinking about obesity, weight loss and willpower. For years, the advice to the overweight and obese has been that we simply need to eat less and exercise more. While there is truth to this guidance, it fails to take into account that the human body continues to fight against weight loss long after dieting has stopped. This translates into a sobering reality: once we become fat, most of us, despite our best efforts, will probably stay fat.

I have always felt perplexed about my inability to keep weight off. I know the medical benefits of weight loss, and I don’t drink sugary sodas or eat fast food. I exercise regularly — a few years ago, I even completed a marathon. Yet during the 23 years since graduating from college, I’ve lost 10 or 20 pounds at a time, maintained it for a little while and then gained it all back and more, to the point where I am now easily 60 pounds overweight.

I wasn’t overweight as a child, but I can’t remember a time when my mother, whose weight probably fluctuated between 150 and 250 pounds, wasn’t either on a diet or, in her words, cheating on her diet. Sometimes we ate healthful, balanced meals; on other days dinner consisted of a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. As a high-school cross-country runner, I never worried about weight, but in college, when my regular training runs were squeezed out by studying and socializing, the numbers on the scale slowly began to move up. As adults, my three sisters and I all struggle with weight, as do many members of my extended family. My mother died of esophageal cancer six years ago. It was her great regret that in the days before she died, the closest medical school turned down her offer to donate her body because she was obese.

It’s possible that the biological cards were stacked against me from the start. Researchers know that obesity tends to run in families, and recent science suggests that even the desire to eat higher-calorie foods may be influenced by heredity. But untangling how much is genetic and how much is learned through family eating habits is difficult. What is clear is that some people appear to be prone to accumulating extra fat while others seem to be protected against it.

In a seminal series of experiments published in the 1990s, the Canadian researchers Claude Bouchard and Angelo Tremblay studied 31 pairs of male twins ranging in age from 17 to 29, who were sometimes overfed and sometimes put on diets. (None of the twin pairs were at risk for obesity based on their body mass or their family history.) In one study, 12 sets of the twins were put under 24-hour supervision in a college dormitory. Six days a week they ate 1,000 extra calories a day, and one day they were allowed to eat normally. They could read, play video games, play cards and watch television, but exercise was limited to one 30-minute daily walk. Over the course of the 120-day study, the twins consumed 84,000 extra calories beyond their basic needs.

That experimental binge should have translated into a weight gain of roughly 24 pounds (based on 3,500 calories to a pound). But some gained less than 10 pounds, while others gained as much as 29 pounds. The amount of weight gained and how the fat was distributed around the body closely matched among brothers, but varied considerably among the different sets of twins. Some brothers gained three times as much fat around their abdomens as others, for instance. When the researchers conducted similar exercise studies with the twins, they saw the patterns in reverse, with some twin sets losing more pounds than others on the same exercise regimen. The findings, the researchers wrote, suggest a form of “biological determinism” that can make a person susceptible to weight gain or loss.

But while there is widespread agreement that at least some risk for obesity is inherited, identifying a specific genetic cause has been a challenge. In October 2010, the journal Nature Genetics reported that researchers have so far confirmed 32 distinct genetic variations associated with obesity or body-mass index. One of the most common of these variations was identified in April 2007 by a British team studying the genetics of Type 2 diabetes. According to Timothy Frayling at the Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Science at the University of Exeter, people who carried a variant known as FTO faced a much higher risk of obesity — 30 percent higher if they had one copy of the variant; 60 percent if they had two.

This FTO variant is surprisingly common; about 65 percent of people of European or African descent and an estimated 27 to 44 percent of Asians are believed to carry at least one copy of it. Scientists don’t understand how the FTO variation influences weight gain, but studies in children suggest the trait plays a role in eating habits. In one 2008 study led by Colin Palmer of the University of Dundee in Scotland, Scottish schoolchildren were given snacks of orange drinks and muffins and then allowed to graze on a buffet of grapes, celery, potato chips and chocolate buttons. All the food was carefully monitored so the researchers knew exactly what was consumed. Although all the children ate about the same amount of food, as weighed in grams, children with the FTO variant were more likely to eat foods with higher fat and calorie content. They weren’t gorging themselves, but they consumed, on average, about 100 calories more than children who didn’t carry the gene. Those who had the gene variant had about four pounds more body fat than noncarriers.

I have been tempted to send in my own saliva sample for a DNA test to find out if my family carries a genetic predisposition for obesity. But even if the test came back negative, it would only mean that my family doesn’t carry a known, testable genetic risk for obesity. Recently the British television show “Embarrassing Fat Bodies” asked Frayling’s lab to test for fat-promoting genes, and the results showed one very overweight family had a lower-than-average risk for obesity.

A positive result, telling people they are genetically inclined to stay fat, might be self-fulfilling. In February, The New England Journal of Medicine published a report on how genetic testing for a variety of diseases affected a person’s mood and health habits. Over all, the researchers found no effect from disease-risk testing, but there was a suggestion, though it didn’t reach statistical significance, that after testing positive for fat-promoting genes, some people were more likely to eat fatty foods, presumably because they thought being fat was their genetic destiny and saw no sense in fighting it.

While knowing my genetic risk might satisfy my curiosity, I also know that heredity, at best, would explain only part of why I became overweight. I’m much more interested in figuring out what I can do about it now.

The National Weight Control Registry tracks 10,000 people who have lost weight and have kept it off. “We set it up in response to comments that nobody ever succeeds at weight loss,” says Rena Wing, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University’s Alpert Medical School, who helped create the registry with James O. Hill, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado at Denver. “We had two goals: to prove there were people who did, and to try to learn from them about what they do to achieve this long-term weight loss.” Anyone who has lost 30 pounds and kept it off for at least a year is eligible to join the study, though the average member has lost 70 pounds and remained at that weight for six years.

Wing says that she agrees that physiological changes probably do occur that make permanent weight loss difficult, but she says the larger problem is environmental, and that people struggle to keep weight off because they are surrounded by food, inundated with food messages and constantly presented with opportunities to eat. “We live in an environment with food cues all the time,” Wing says. “We’ve taught ourselves over the years that one of the ways to reward yourself is with food. It’s hard to change the environment and the behavior.”

There is no consistent pattern to how people in the registry lost weight — some did it on Weight Watchers, others with Jenny Craig, some by cutting carbs on the Atkins diet and a very small number lost weight through surgery. But their eating and exercise habits appear to reflect what researchers find in the lab: to lose weight and keep it off, a person must eat fewer calories and exercise far more than a person who maintains the same weight naturally. Registry members exercise about an hour or more each day — the average weight-loser puts in the equivalent of a four-mile daily walk, seven days a week. They get on a scale every day in order to keep their weight within a narrow range. They eat breakfast regularly. Most watch less than half as much television as the overall population. They eat the same foods and in the same patterns consistently each day and don’t “cheat” on weekends or holidays. They also appear to eat less than most people, with estimates ranging from 50 to 300 fewer daily calories.

Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, says that while the 10,000 people tracked in the registry are a useful resource, they also represent a tiny percentage of the tens of millions of people who have tried unsuccessfully to lose weight. “All it means is that there are rare individuals who do manage to keep it off,” Brownell says. “You find these people are incredibly vigilant about maintaining their weight. Years later they are paying attention to every calorie, spending an hour a day on exercise. They never don’t think about their weight.”

Janice Bridge, a registry member who has successfully maintained a 135-pound weight loss for about five years, is a perfect example. “It’s one of the hardest things there is,” she says. “It’s something that has to be focused on every minute. I’m not always thinking about food, but I am always aware of food.”

Bridge, who is 66 and lives in Davis, Calif., was overweight as a child and remembers going on her first diet of 1,400 calories a day at 14. At the time, her slow pace of weight loss prompted her doctor to accuse her of cheating. Friends told her she must not be paying attention to what she was eating. “No one would believe me that I was doing everything I was told,” she says. “You can imagine how tremendously depressing it was and what a feeling of rebellion and anger was building up.”

After peaking at 330 pounds in 2004, she tried again to lose weight. She managed to drop 30 pounds, but then her weight loss stalled. In 2006, at age 60, she joined a medically supervised weight-loss program with her husband, Adam, who weighed 310 pounds. After nine months on an 800-calorie diet, she slimmed down to 165 pounds. Adam lost about 110 pounds and now weighs about 200.

During the first years after her weight loss, Bridge tried to test the limits of how much she could eat. She used exercise to justify eating more. The death of her mother in 2009 consumed her attention; she lost focus and slowly regained 30 pounds. She has decided to try to maintain this higher weight of 195, which is still 135 pounds fewer than her heaviest weight.

“It doesn’t take a lot of variance from my current maintenance for me to pop on another two or three pounds,” she says. “It’s been a real struggle to stay at this weight, but it’s worth it, it’s good for me, it makes me feel better. But my body would put on weight almost instantaneously if I ever let up.”

So she never lets up. Since October 2006 she has weighed herself every morning and recorded the result in a weight diary. She even carries a scale with her when she travels. In the past six years, she made only one exception to this routine: a two-week, no-weigh vacation in Hawaii.

She also weighs everything in the kitchen. She knows that lettuce is about 5 calories a cup, while flour is about 400. If she goes out to dinner, she conducts a Web search first to look at the menu and calculate calories to help her decide what to order. She avoids anything with sugar or white flour, which she calls her “gateway drugs” for cravings and overeating. She has also found that drinking copious amounts of water seems to help; she carries a 20-ounce water bottle and fills it five times a day. She writes down everything she eats. At night, she transfers all the information to an electronic record. Adam also keeps track but prefers to keep his record with pencil and paper.

“That transfer process is really important; it’s my accountability,” she says. “It comes up with the total number of calories I’ve eaten today and the amount of protein. I do a little bit of self-analysis every night.”

Bridge and her husband each sought the help of therapists, and in her sessions, Janice learned that she had a tendency to eat when she was bored or stressed. “We are very much aware of how our culture taught us to use food for all kinds of reasons that aren’t related to its nutritive value,” Bridge says.

Bridge supports her careful diet with an equally rigorous regimen of physical activity. She exercises from 100 to 120 minutes a day, six or seven days a week, often by riding her bicycle to the gym, where she takes a water-aerobics class. She also works out on an elliptical trainer at home and uses a recumbent bike to “walk” the dog, who loves to run alongside the low, three-wheeled machine. She enjoys gardening as a hobby but allows herself to count it as exercise on only those occasions when she needs to “garden vigorously.” Adam is also a committed exerciser, riding his bike at least two hours a day, five days a week.

Janice Bridge has used years of her exercise and diet data to calculate her own personal fuel efficiency. She knows that her body burns about three calories a minute during gardening, about four calories a minute on the recumbent bike and during water aerobics and about five a minute when she zips around town on her regular bike.

“Practically anyone will tell you someone biking is going to burn 11 calories a minute,” she says. “That’s not my body. I know it because of the statistics I’ve kept.”

Based on metabolism data she collected from the weight-loss clinic and her own calculations, she has discovered that to keep her current weight of 195 pounds, she can eat 2,000 calories a day as long as she burns 500 calories in exercise. She avoids junk food, bread and pasta and many dairy products and tries to make sure nearly a third of her calories come from protein. The Bridges will occasionally share a dessert, or eat an individual portion of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, so they know exactly how many calories they are ingesting. Because she knows errors can creep in, either because a rainy day cuts exercise short or a mismeasured snack portion adds hidden calories, she allows herself only 1,800 daily calories of food. (The average estimate for a similarly active woman of her age and size is about 2,300 calories.)

Just talking to Bridge about the effort required to maintain her weight is exhausting. I find her story inspiring, but it also makes me wonder whether I have what it takes to be thin. I have tried on several occasions (and as recently as a couple weeks ago) to keep a daily diary of my eating and exercise habits, but it’s easy to let it slide. I can’t quite imagine how I would ever make time to weigh and measure food when some days it’s all I can do to get dinner on the table between finishing my work and carting my daughter to dance class or volleyball practice. And while I enjoy exercising for 30- or 40-minute stretches, I also learned from six months of marathon training that devoting one to two hours a day to exercise takes an impossible toll on my family life.

Bridge concedes that having grown children and being retired make it easier to focus on her weight. “I don’t know if I could have done this when I had three kids living at home,” she says. “We know how unusual we are. It’s pretty easy to get angry with the amount of work and dedication it takes to keep this weight off. But the alternative is to not keep the weight off. ”

“I think many people who are anxious to lose weight don’t fully understand what the consequences are going to be, nor does the medical community fully explain this to people,” Rudolph Leibel, an obesity researcher at Columbia University in New York, says. “We don’t want to make them feel hopeless, but we do want to make them understand that they are trying to buck a biological system that is going to try to make it hard for them.”

Leibel and his colleague Michael Rosenbaum have pioneered much of what we know about the body’s response to weight loss. For 25 years, they have meticulously tracked about 130 individuals for six months or longer at a stretch. The subjects reside at their research clinic where every aspect of their bodies is measured. Body fat is determined by bone-scan machines. A special hood monitors oxygen consumption and carbon-dioxide output to precisely measure metabolism. Calories burned during digestion are tracked. Exercise tests measure maximum heart rate, while blood tests measure hormones and brain chemicals. Muscle biopsies are taken to analyze their metabolic efficiency. (Early in the research, even stool samples were collected and tested to make sure no calories went unaccounted for.) For their trouble, participants are paid $5,000 to $8,000.

Eventually, the Columbia subjects are placed on liquid diets of 800 calories a day until they lose 10 percent of their body weight. Once they reach the goal, they are subjected to another round of intensive testing as they try to maintain the new weight. The data generated by these experiments suggest that once a person loses about 10 percent of body weight, he or she is metabolically different than a similar-size person who is naturally the same weight.

The research shows that the changes that occur after weight loss translate to a huge caloric disadvantage of about 250 to 400 calories. For instance, one woman who entered the Columbia studies at 230 pounds was eating about 3,000 calories to maintain that weight. Once she dropped to 190 pounds, losing 17 percent of her body weight, metabolic studies determined that she needed about 2,300 daily calories to maintain the new lower weight. That may sound like plenty, but the typical 30-year-old 190-pound woman can consume about 2,600 calories to maintain her weight — 300 more calories than the woman who dieted to get there.

Scientists are still learning why a weight-reduced body behaves so differently from a similar-size body that has not dieted. Muscle biopsies taken before, during and after weight loss show that once a person drops weight, their muscle fibers undergo a transformation, making them more like highly efficient “slow twitch” muscle fibers. A result is that after losing weight, your muscles burn 20 to 25 percent fewer calories during everyday activity and moderate aerobic exercise than those of a person who is naturally at the same weight. That means a dieter who thinks she is burning 200 calories during a brisk half-hour walk is probably using closer to 150 to 160 calories.

Another way that the body seems to fight weight loss is by altering the way the brain responds to food. Rosenbaum and his colleague Joy Hirsch, a neuroscientist also at Columbia, used functional magnetic resonance imaging to track the brain patterns of people before and after weight loss while they looked at objects like grapes, Gummi Bears, chocolate, broccoli, cellphones and yo-yos. After weight loss, when the dieter looked at food, the scans showed a bigger response in the parts of the brain associated with reward and a lower response in the areas associated with control. This suggests that the body, in order to get back to its pre-diet weight, induces cravings by making the person feel more excited about food and giving him or her less willpower to resist a high-calorie treat.

“After you’ve lost weight, your brain has a greater emotional response to food,” Rosenbaum says. “You want it more, but the areas of the brain involved in restraint are less active.” Combine that with a body that is now burning fewer calories than expected, he says, “and you’ve created the perfect storm for weight regain.” How long this state lasts isn’t known, but preliminary research at Columbia suggests that for as many as six years after weight loss, the body continues to defend the old, higher weight by burning off far fewer calories than would be expected. The problem could persist indefinitely. (The same phenomenon occurs when a thin person tries to drop about 10 percent of his or her body weight — the body defends the higher weight.) This doesn’t mean it’s impossible to lose weight and keep it off; it just means it’s really, really difficult.

Lynn Haraldson, a 48-year-old woman who lives in Pittsburgh, reached 300 pounds in 2000. She joined Weight Watchers and managed to take her 5-foot-5 body down to 125 pounds for a brief time. Today, she’s a member of the National Weight Control Registry and maintains about 140 pounds by devoting her life to weight maintenance. She became a vegetarian, writes down what she eats every day, exercises at least five days a week and blogs about the challenges of weight maintenance. A former journalist and antiques dealer, she returned to school for a two-year program on nutrition and health; she plans to become a dietary counselor. She has also come to accept that she can never stop being “hypervigilant” about what she eats. “Everything has to change,” she says. “I’ve been up and down the scale so many times, always thinking I can go back to ‘normal,’ but I had to establish a new normal. People don’t like hearing that it’s not easy.”

What’s not clear from the research is whether there is a window during which we can gain weight and then lose it without creating biological backlash. Many people experience transient weight gain, putting on a few extra pounds during the holidays or gaining 10 or 20 pounds during the first years of college that they lose again. The actor Robert De Niro lost weight after bulking up for his performance in “Raging Bull.” The filmmaker Morgan Spurlock also lost the weight he gained during the making of “Super Size Me.” Leibel says that whether these temporary pounds became permanent probably depends on a person’s genetic risk for obesity and, perhaps, the length of time a person carried the extra weight before trying to lose it. But researchers don’t know how long it takes for the body to reset itself permanently to a higher weight. The good news is that it doesn’t seem to happen overnight.

“For a mouse, I know the time period is somewhere around eight months,” Leibel says. “Before that time, a fat mouse can come back to being a skinny mouse again without too much adjustment. For a human we don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it’s not measured in months, but in years.”

Nobody wants to be fat. In most modern cultures, even if you are healthy — in my case, my cholesterol and blood pressure are low and I have an extraordinarily healthy heart — to be fat is to be perceived as weak-willed and lazy. It’s also just embarrassing. Once, at a party, I met a well-respected writer who knew my work as a health writer. “You’re not at all what I expected,” she said, eyes widening. The man I was dating, perhaps trying to help, finished the thought. “You thought she’d be thinner, right?” he said. I wanted to disappear, but the woman was gracious. “No,” she said, casting a glare at the man and reaching to warmly shake my hand. “I thought you’d be older.”

If anything, the emerging science of weight loss teaches us that perhaps we should rethink our biases about people who are overweight. It is true that people who are overweight, including myself, get that way because they eat too many calories relative to what their bodies need. But a number of biological and genetic factors can play a role in determining exactly how much food is too much for any given individual. Clearly, weight loss is an intense struggle, one in which we are not fighting simply hunger or cravings for sweets, but our own bodies.

While the public discussion about weight loss tends to come down to which diet works best (Atkins? Jenny Craig? Plant-based? Mediterranean?), those who have tried and failed at all of these diets know there is no simple answer. Fat, sugar and carbohydrates in processed foods may very well be culprits in the nation’s obesity problem. But there is tremendous variation in an individual’s response.

The view of obesity as primarily a biological, rather than psychological, disease could also lead to changes in the way we approach its treatment. Scientists at Columbia have conducted several small studies looking at whether injecting people with leptin, the hormone made by body fat, can override the body’s resistance to weight loss and help maintain a lower weight. In a few small studies, leptin injections appear to trick the body into thinking it’s still fat. After leptin replacement, study subjects burned more calories during activity. And in brain-scan studies, leptin injections appeared to change how the brain responded to food, making it seem less enticing. But such treatments are still years away from commercial development. For now, those of us who want to lose weight and keep it off are on our own.

One question many researchers think about is whether losing weight more slowly would make it more sustainable than the fast weight loss often used in scientific studies. Leibel says the pace of weight loss is unlikely to make a difference, because the body’s warning system is based solely on how much fat a person loses, not how quickly he or she loses it. Even so, Proietto is now conducting a study using a slower weight-loss method and following dieters for three years instead of one.

Given how hard it is to lose weight, it’s clear, from a public-health standpoint, that resources would best be focused on preventing weight gain. The research underscores the urgency of national efforts to get children to exercise and eat healthful foods.

But with a third of the U.S. adult population classified as obese, nobody is saying people who already are very overweight should give up on weight loss. Instead, the solution may be to preach a more realistic goal. Studies suggest that even a 5 percent weight loss can lower a person’s risk for diabetes, heart disease and other health problems associated with obesity. There is also speculation that the body is more willing to accept small amounts of weight loss.

But an obese person who loses just 5 percent of her body weight will still very likely be obese. For a 250-pound woman, a 5 percent weight loss of about 12 pounds probably won’t even change her clothing size. Losing a few pounds may be good for the body, but it does very little for the spirit and is unlikely to change how fat people feel about themselves or how others perceive them.

So where does that leave a person who wants to lose a sizable amount of weight? Weight-loss scientists say they believe that once more people understand the genetic and biological challenges of keeping weight off, doctors and patients will approach weight loss more realistically and more compassionately. At the very least, the science may compel people who are already overweight to work harder to make sure they don’t put on additional pounds. Some people, upon learning how hard permanent weight loss can be, may give up entirely and return to overeating. Others may decide to accept themselves at their current weight and try to boost their fitness and overall health rather than changing the number on the scale.

For me, understanding the science of weight loss has helped make sense of my own struggles to lose weight, as well as my mother’s endless cycle of dieting, weight gain and despair. I wish she were still here so I could persuade her to finally forgive herself for her dieting failures. While I do, ultimately, blame myself for allowing my weight to get out of control, it has been somewhat liberating to learn that there are factors other than my character at work when it comes to gaining and losing weight. And even though all the evidence suggests that it’s going to be very, very difficult for me to reduce my weight permanently, I’m surprisingly optimistic. I may not be ready to fight this battle this month or even this year. But at least I know what I’m up against.

Tara Parker-Pope is the editor of the Well blog at The Times.

Editor: Ilena Silverman

the lunch lady

2011-12-31T05:01:00.000-08:00

Every morning before the sun rises, Nguyen Thi Thanh rolls out of bed, dons a comfy do bo (Vietnamese pyjamas), hops on her motorbike and heads to Thi Nghe Market. Thanh has been frequenting the same vendors for years, so everyone knows her by name and provides her with the freshest meats, noodles, herbs and vegetables.

Thanh arrives home at 8 am and begins preparing the day’s noodle dish. All of her broths are made from scratch, and she is blessed with a certain touch that somehow allows her soup seasonings to simultaneously suit everyone’s tastes. An hour before noon, the broth is finally perfect, and a crowd of customers gathered under a shady tree near her apartment is ready to dig into a hot bowl of noodles. This well-worn routine has been a part of Thanh’s life for the past decade, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Despite recent dramatic increases in the costs of raw ingredients, Thanh refuses to raise her prices above 13,000 VND. She does not want to burden her customers, who are mostly local residents and workers. Instead, she compensates by selling additional bowls of noodles. “I used to sell 15 kilograms of noodles,” she says, “But these days I sell 20 kilograms, which yields 80 to 100 bowls.”

Pudding

2011-12-30T18:16:00.000-08:00

Pudding most often refers to a dessert, but it can also be a savory dish.
In the United States, pudding characteristically denotes a sweet milk-based dessert similar in consistency to egg-based custards, though it may also refer to other types such as bread and rice pudding.
In the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth countries, pudding refers to rich, fairly homogeneous starch- or dairy-based desserts such as rice pudding and Christmas pudding, or, informally, any sweet dish after the main course. The word pudding in this context is also used as a synonym for the dessert course. The word is also used for savory dishes such as Yorkshire pudding, black pudding, suet pudding and steak and kidney pudding.
The word pudding is believed to come from the French boudin, originally from the Latin botellus, meaning "small sausage," referring to encased meats used in Medieval European puddings.

Sancochar

2011-12-30T18:03:00.001-08:00

Sancochar Es un término muy utilizado en México, Perú y muchos lugares de América Latina significa cocer algo ligeramente sin dejar que llegue a ablandarse (México).

Dependiendo de la región va desde "cocer a medias", cocer la comida, dejándola medio cruda y sin sazonar o cocer entera. En Centroamérica, cocinar con agua y sal y condimento. En otros países en cambio (por ejemplo Venezuela), cocer completamente un alimento en agua.

Sancocho:

Se denomina Sancocho a un preparado a medio cocer.

En la República Dominicana (a base de carne de res y muchísimos ingredientes) y en Venezuela (pescado o carne, o los sancochos cruzados con dos tipos de carne) es un término muy popular asociado incluso a una fiesta gastronómica.

En España el sancocho se cocina en las Islas Canarias. La yuca y el plátano son ingredientes usuales de estos platos.

Capirotada

2011-12-27T18:22:00.000-08:00

Ingredientes:

4 bolillos partidos en rebanadas
2 panochas de piloncillo
1/2 taza de cacahuate pelado
1/2 taza de pasas
1 taza de queso añejo partido en cuadros
1 rama de canela
1 cucharada sopera de grageas de colores
aceite para freír

Preparado:

Hierva el piloncillo con la canela en 2 tazas de agua para formar una miel.
Dore las rebanadas de pan en aceite y quite el exceso de grasa poniéndolas sobre una servilleta de papel.
En una cazuela coloque una capa de rebanadas de pan, cúbralas con pasas, cacahuates y trozos de queso, luego ponga otra capa de pan, pasas, cacahuates, etc. y así sucesivamente.
Bañe con la miel.
Ponga la cazuela a baño María una 1/2 hora para que se suavice el pan; espolvoree con grageas de colores.

Southern Buttermilk Biscuits

2011-12-14T09:47:00.000-08:00

I tried to make biscuits with some leftover plain yogurt and they would have been perfect but I used too much baking soda. Therefore, nothing is critical in this recipe but there are limits and the cook's hand will show.

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour , plus more for dusting the board (if you can get White Lily flour, your biscuits will be even better)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder (use one without aluminum)
1 teaspoon kosher salt or 1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter , very cold
1 cup buttermilk (approx)

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 450°F.
Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, or in the bowl of a food processor.
Cut the butter into chunks and cut into the flour until it resembles course meal.
If using a food processor, just pulse a few times until this consistency is achieved.
Add the buttermilk and mix JUST until combined.
If it appears on the dry side, add a bit more buttermilk. It should be very wet.
Turn the dough out onto a floured board.
Gently, gently PAT (do NOT roll with a rolling pin) the dough out until it's about 1/2" thick. Fold the dough about 5 times, gently press the dough down to a 1 inch thick.
Use a round cutter to cut into rounds.
You can gently knead the scraps together and make a few more, but they will not be anywhere near as good as the first ones.
Place the biscuits on a cookie sheet- if you like soft sides, put them touching each other.
If you like"crusty" sides, put them about 1 inch apart- these will not rise as high as the biscuits put close together.
Bake for about 10-12 minutes- the biscuits will be a beautiful light golden brown on top and bottom.
Do not overbake.
Note: The key to real biscuits is not in the ingredients, but in the handling of the dough.
The dough must be handled as little as possible or you will have tough biscuits.
I have found that a food processor produces superior biscuits, because the ingredients stay colder and there's less chance of overmixing.
You also must pat the dough out with your hands, lightly.
Rolling with a rolling pin is a guaranteed way to overstimulate the gluten, resulting in a tougher biscuit.
Note 2: You can make these biscuits, cut them, put them on cookie sheets and freeze them for up to a month.
When you want fresh biscuits, simply place them frozen on the cookie sheet and bake at 450°F for about 20 minutes.

Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/southern-buttermilk-biscuits-26110#ixzz1gX1dWGN3

Empanadas de zaragalla

2011-12-12T14:57:00.000-08:00

INGREDIENTES:

1kg Cazón
1 pza Chile Color
4 dientes de Ajo mediano
2 rodajas de Cebolla mediana
10 pzas Pimientas
2 pzas de Clavo
5 hojas de Laurel (hoja)
1 lata chica de Chiles en vinagre
10 pzas Alcaparras
10 pzas Aceitunas
Sal
1 Kg de Masa

PREPARACION:

El pescado se sancocha y se deshebra, agregue la sal al gusto
El chile color se soaza y se remoja
La cebolla, ajo, pimienta y clavo se asan en un comal y se muelen con el chile color
Esto se frie muy bien, despues se le agrega agua y se incorpora el pescado, el laurel en hoja, las alcaparas y las aceitunas finamente picadas, se deja que se consuma el agua.
El chile en vinagre al gusto se escurre y se pica y se agrega antes de apagar
La saragaya esta lista para hacer unas ricas empanadas de maiz blanco.

Sirvanse calientes y acompañelas con arroz, mmmm , provecho

Horchata

2011-12-12T12:42:00.000-08:00

Tomado de http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Horchata-Cinnamon-Rice-Milk/Detail.aspx

INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)
1 cup long grain rice, rinsed
2 quarts water
1 cinnamon stick, broken into pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)
1/2 cup white sugar

DIRECTIONS
In a large saucepan, combine rice, water and cinnamon stick. Set aside for 3 hours.
After 3 hours, bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. Allow to cool.
Puree rice mixture in a blender until smooth. Strain through cheesecloth or a fine sieve. Flavor with vanilla and sugar to taste. Chill, and serve over ice.

Amaranth with Spinach Tomato Mushroom Sauce

2011-12-12T10:22:00.000-08:00

Tomado de http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=9021.0

1 cup amaranth seed
2-1/2 cups water
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 bunch spinach (or young amaranth leaves if available)
2 ripe tomatoes, skinned and coarsely chopped
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced
1-1/2 teaspoons basil
1-1/2 teaspoons oregano
1 clove of garlic minced
1 Tablespoon onion, minced
Sea salt and pepper to taste (or use a salt substitute)

Add amaranth to boiling water, bring back to boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 18-20 minutes.
While amaranth is cooking, stem and wash spinach, then simmer until tender. Dip tomatoes into boiling water to loosen skin, then peel and chop. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat and add garlic an onion. Sauté approximately 2 minutes. Add tomato, mushrooms, basil, oregano, salt, pepper and 1 Tablespoon of water. Drain and chop spinach and add to tomato mixture. Cook an addition 10 – 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Lightly mash tomato as it is cooking.
Stir the sauce into the amaranth or spoon it on top.

Amaranth "Grits"

2011-12-12T10:20:00.000-08:00

Tomado de http://chetday.com/amaranth.html

1 cup amaranth
1 clove garlic, finely chopped or pressed
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 cups water or vegetable stock
Sea salt or soy sauce to taste
Hot sauce to taste
Garnish: 2 plum tomatoes

Combine the amaranth, garlic, onion, and stock in a 2-quart saucepan. Boil; reduce heat and simmer covered until most of the liquid has been absorbed, about 20 minutes.
Stir well. If the mixture is too thin or the amaranth not quite tender (it should be crunchy, but not gritty hard), boil gently while stirring constantly until thickened, about 30 seconds. Add salt or soy sauce to taste.
Stir in a few drops of hot sauce, if desired, and garnish with chopped tomatoes.

a waffle that changed my life

2011-12-10T14:48:00.000-08:00

Dust off your waffle iron!

For pennies you get a million dollars worth of nutrition and health.

Excerpt: I love waffles, but I don't like how I feel after eating them. Then I ate a waffle that changed my life! [For the whole article, click here.]

While visiting friends in Hawaii they treated my husband and I to homemade Belgian-style waffles. They were light, fluffy and really tasty. "They're made from soybean and rolled oats," Carrie explained, smiling.

Carrie handed me a tattered copy of "Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Cookbook." As I flipped through the pages, timed rolled back to the mid 1970s when I made a lot of dishes with lentils, rice, soy and beans. "That's hippie food!" my Mom used to say.

Today, we know better. These aren't just food for hippies because the more plant-based foods we consume, the better.

Back in Alaska, I bought a used copy of the cookbook for $2.00. The waffle recipes in the book call for simple ingredients like pinto beans, garbanzo beans or soybeans, rolled oats, lentils, millet, rice, cashews and buckwheat. No eggs, milk or baking powder. Wheat-free, too.

For pennies you get a million dollars worth of nutrition and health. "One soy-oat waffle has protein equal in quantity and quality to that in a serving of steak," says author Edyth Young Cottrel.

Revenge is a dish best served warm out of the oven

2011-12-07T18:11:00.000-08:00

FWD: Free Neiman-Marcus Cookie Recipe
This is a true story... Please forward it to everyone that you can.... You will have to read it to believe it....

My daughter and I had just finished a salad at Neiman-Marcus Cafe in Dallas & decided to have a small dessert. Because both of us are such cookie lovers, we decided to try the "Neiman-Marcus Cookie". It was so excellent that I asked if they would give me the recipe and the waitress said with a small frown "I'm afraid not." Well" I said, "would you let me buy the recipe?"

With a cute smile, she said YES". I asked how much and she responded, "Only two fifty, it's a great deal!" I said with approval, "just add it to my tab".. Thirty days later, I received my VISA statement from Neiman-Marcus and it was $285.00. I looked again and remembered I had only spent $9.95 for two salads and about $20.00 for a scarf. As I glanced at the bottom of the statement, it said, "Cookie Recipe - $250.00". That's outrageous!!!

I called Neiman's Accounting Dept. and told them that the waitress said it was "two-fifty," which clearly does not mean "two hundred and fifty dollars" by any POSSIBLE interpretation of the phrase. Neiman-Marcus refused to budge.. They would not refund my money, because according to them, "What the waitress told you is not our problem. You have already seen the recipe - we absolutely will not refund your money at this point." I explained to her the criminal statutes which govern fraud in Texas. I threatened to refer them to the Better Business Bureau and the State's Attorney General for engaging in fraud. I was basically told, "Do what you want, we dont give a damn, and we're not refunding your money." I waited a moment, thinking of how I could get even,or even try to get any of my money back. I just said, "Okay, you folks got my $250.00, and now I'm going to have $250.00 worth of fun."

I told her that I was going to see to it that every cookie lover in the United States with an e-mail account has a $250.00 cookie recipe from Neiman-Marcus... for free..She replied, "I wish you wouldn't do this" I said, "Well you should have thought of that before you ripped me off", and slammed down the phone on her.. So, here it is!!! Please, please, please pass it on to everyone you can possibly think of. I paid $250.00 dollars for this... I don't want Neiman-Marcus to ever get another penny off of this recipe....

(Recipe may be halved):
2 cups butter
4 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups brown sugar
5 cups blended oatmeal (measure oatmeal and blend in blender to a fine powder)
24 oz. chocolate chips
1 tsp. salt
1 8 oz. Hershey bar (grated)
4 eggs
2 tsp. baking powder
3 cups chopped nuts (your choice)
2 tsp. vanilla

Cream the butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla; mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and soda. Add chocolate chips, Hershey bar and nuts. Roll into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet..Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Makes 112 cookies.. Have Fun!!!

This is not a joke - this is a true story... Ride free citizens!!!! This isn't some stupid chain letter either.. pass it on.. if you don't, you won't die or get dumped.. you'll just do the world an injustice...

Thanx...

Most Internet users are probably familiar with "The $250 Cookie Recipe" and most recently associated with the Neiman Marcus company, though it was the bane of cookie diva Mrs. Fields during the 1980s.

It isn't actually true. It's a classic urban legend, a variant of a popular tale folklorists have traced as far back as 1948, when the ridiculously expensive recipe yielded a red velvet fudge cake supposedly served at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel (asking price for that recipe at the time: $25).

As for the recipe itself by most accounts it yields damn good ones (and plenty of them). No one knows whose kitchen it came from. Neiman Marcus chefs did create a chocolate chip cookie recipe after the fact, however, which the company now distributes free of charge as an antidote.

India

2011-12-01T16:54:00.000-08:00

Semolina (Cream of wheat)

2009-08-11T07:00:00.001-07:00

Porción	1	2	4
Leche	1-1 1/4 Tazas	2 Tazas	4 Tazas
Sal	1/8 tsp	1/4 tsp	1/2 tsp
Semolina	3 tbsp	1/3 Taza	3/4 Taza

hervir la leche. Mover constantemente para que no se derrame.
Incorporar gradualmente la semolina batiendo constantemente hasta que se incorpore bien.
Hervir de nuevo; reducir llama a bajo, cocer destapado por 2 minutos o hasta que espese. Mover frecuentemente.
Dejarlo enfriar un poco.

Microondas

Mezclar 3 tbsps de semolina con 3/4 Tazas de leche y una pizca de sal.
Poner en el micro en High 1 minuto. batir. Cocinar 1 o 2 minutos adicionales hasta que espese, batiendo cada 30 segundos.

Onion-Rye dinner rolls

2009-08-05T12:11:00.001-07:00

1 cup milk
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter
5/16 oz active dry yeast
1/2 lukewarm water (110⁰F)
3 cups white flour
2 tablespoons caraway seeds
6 tablespoons minced onion
1/2 wheat germ
1-1 1/4 cups rye flour
1 egg
2 teaspoons water

Scald milk; combine it in mixing bowl with honey, salt, and butter.
Stir well; cool to lukewarm.
Dissolve yeast in the lukewarm water; combine with milk mixture.
Add white flour and beat vigorously 1 minute or until batter is very smooth.
Add caraway seeds, onion, wheat germ, and enough rye flour so dough is firm enough to knead.
Turn dough onto floured surface; knead 8 minutes.
Place in greased bowl, turning once to coat evenly.
Cover and let rise in warm place until dough is doubled (one hour).
Punch down dough and roll by hand into a long rope about 1 1/2 inches thick.
Cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces and shape into buns.
Place 2 inches apart on an oiled baking sheet.
Cover with towel and let rise until doubled.
Preheat oven to 400⁰F.
Beat the egg with warm water and brush the top of the buns.
Bake 12-15minutes or until nicely browned

Yield 18-24 dinner rolls.

German dark rye bread

2009-08-05T06:17:00.001-07:00

3 cups All purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa
5/16 oz active dry yeast
1 tablespoons caraway seeds
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups water
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup honey
31/2 cups rye flour
8 teaspoons wheat gluten

Place white flour, cocoa, yeast, caraway seeds, gluten, and salt in large bowl. Stir to mix.
Place water, honey, and butter in a saucepan and heat until butter melts. When this liquid mixture registers 105⁰-115⁰F add to dry ingredients and mix until moistened, then beat very hard for 3 minutes.
Stir in rye flour, enough to make a soft dough.
Knead 8 to 10 minutes.
Roll out and shape to fit 2 greased loaf pans.
Brush tops lightly with oil and cover with a damp cloth.
Raise in unheated oven over a pan of hot water for 1 hour until doubled.
Punch down and allow to raise again until almost doubled.
Preheat oven to 400⁰F. Bake 25 minutes.
Remove from oven and immediately remove from pans; let cool on racks.

Honey Wheat Bread

2009-08-04T19:19:00.001-07:00

A 100% whole wheat bread will have a coarser texture than bread make with a mix of Whole Wheat and All Purpose Flour

Bake: 375 F^ofor 30 - 35 minutes.

1 packet active dry yeast
2 cups warm water
1/3 cup honey or dark molasses
2 tablespoons soft shortening
2 teaspoons salt
51/2 – 6 cups Whole wheat flour

In mixing bowl place in order all ingredients except flour.
Add flour gradually to make a stiff dough.
Knead on a well-floured surfaced until smooth and satiny, eight to ten minutes.
Place in greased bowl.
Cover. let rise in warm place until doubled, 11/2 – 2 hours.
Divide in half. Shape into balls.
Cover with bowl; let rest 15 minutes, shape into loaves.
Place in well-greased pan, 9x5 or 8x4.
Cover; let rise until light and double, about an hour.
Bake at 375F⁰ for 30 to 35 minutes, or until deep golden brown.

Sourdough

2009-07-27T17:04:00.001-07:00

Starter

Select a container. A wide-mouthed glass jar is best. Metallic containers are a bad idea; some of them are reactive and can ruin your starter (for the same reason, avoid using metal utensils to stir your starter).
Blend a cup of warm water and a cup of flour, and pour it into the jar.
Every 24 Hours, Feed the Starter. You should keep the starter in a warm place; 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit is perfect. This allows the yeast already present in the flour (and in the air) to grow rapidly. Temperatures hotter than 100 degrees or so will kill it. You can take comfort from the fact that almost nothing else will do so. The way you feed the starter is to (A) throw away half of it and then (B) add a half-cup of flour and a half-cup of water. Do this every 24 hours. Within three or four days (it can take longer, a week or more, and it can happen more quickly) you should start getting lots of bubbles throughout, and a pleasant sour or beery smell.
Refrigerate the Starter. Keep the starter in your fridge, with a lid on it. Allow a little breathing space in the lid. If you're using a mayo or pickle jar, punch a hole in the lid with a nail, that kind of thing. Once the starter is chilled, it needs to be fed only once a week.

Proofing

Take your starter out of the fridge.
Pour it into a large glass or plastic bowl.
Add a cup of warm water and a cup of flour to the bowl.
Stir well, and set it in a warm place for several hours.
Watch for Froth and and Sniff. When your sponge is bubbly and has a white froth, and it smells a little sour, it is ready. The longer you let the sponge sit, the more sour flavor you will get.

The proofing-time varies. Some starters can proof up to frothiness in an hour or two. Some take 6-8 hours,

Basic Recipe

2 Cups of sponge (proofed starter)
3 Cups of unbleached flour
2 tablespoons of olive oil or softened margarine
4 teaspoons of sugar
2 teaspoons of salt

To the sponge, add the sugar, salt, and oil (the oil is optional - you can use softened butter instead, or no oil at all). Mix well, then knead in the flour a half-cup at a time. Knead in enough flour to make a good, flexible bread dough.

Keep in mind that flour amounts are approximate; flour varies in absorbency, and your sponge can vary in wetness. Let the dough rise in a warm place, in a bowl covered loosely with a towel (if you're using a bread machine's dough cycle, let it rise in the machine). Note that sourdough rises more slowly than yeast bread; my starter takes about an hour or so, but some starters take much longer. Let the dough double in bulk. Punch the dough down and knead it a little more. Make a loaf and place it on a baking sheet (lightly greased or sprinkled with cornmeal). Slit the top if you like, and cover the loaf with a paper towel and place it in a warm place to rise again, until doubled in bulk.

Place the pan with the loaf in your oven, and then turn your oven to 350^o Fahrenheit and bake the bread for 30-45 minutes. Do not preheat the oven. The loaf is done when the crust is brown and the bottom sounds hollow when thumped with a wooden spoon. Turn the loaf out onto a cooling rack or a towel and let it cool for an hour before slicing.

Reference

Sourdough Baking- How to Begin - by S. John Ross

Great Northern Beans

2009-07-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

Ingredients:

2 (32 oz.) cans of Great Northern Beans, drained or 1 lb uncooked beans
1 ham steak cut into 2 inch cubes
1 tsp. salt
1/2 lg. sweet onion, chopped
2 (14 oz.) bottles of ketchup
1/3 to 1/2 c. of prepared mustard
3 c. of packed brown sugar

Instructions:

Quick soak:

Rinse and sort beans in a large pot.
Add 6-8 cups hot water to 1 lb of beans (about 2 cups).
Bring to rapid boil; boil for 2 minutes.
Remove from heat.
Cover and let stand 1 hour.
Drain soak water and rinse.

Overnight soak

Rinse and sort beans in a large pot.
Add 6-8 cups hot water to 1 lb of beans (about 2 cups).
Let stand overnight or at least 6-8 hours.
Drain soak water and rinse.

Cooking Directions:

Add 6 cups of hot water to drained and rinsed beans.
Simmer gently with lid tilted until desired tenderness is reached, about 11/2-2 hours.

GREAT NORTHERN BAKED BEANS

Combine ingredients. Cook in a uncovered crock pot 8 to 12 hours or overnight on low heat.

References

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1650,154185-251193,00.html

Cereales

2009-07-12T16:19:00.001-07:00

Tomado de http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cereal

Los cereales son un conjunto de plantas herbáceas cuyos granos o semillas se emplean para la alimentación humana o del ganado, generalmente molidos en forma de harina. La palabra cereal procede de Ceres, el nombre en latín de la diosa de la Agricultura. Los cereales son considerados como la base de las grandes civilizaciones porque constituyeron una de las primeras actividades agrícolas humanas, forjando una forma de alimentación constante alrededor de la cual la actividad humana podía organizarse, de tal manera que las culturas europeas se formaron en torno al trigo, las civilizaciones del extremo oriente alrededor del arroz y las de América cultivaron el maíz.

Los cereales contienen almidón que es el componente principal de los alimentos humanos. El germen de la semilla contiene lípidos en proporción variable que permite la extracción de aceite vegetal de ciertos cereales. La semilla está envuelta por una cáscara formada sobre todo por la celulosa, componente fundamental de la fibra dietética. Algunos cereales contienen una proteína, el gluten, indispensable para que se forme el pan. Las proteínas de los cereales son escasas en aminoácidos esenciales como la lisina.

El procesamiento de los cereales afecta a la composición química y al valor nutricional de los productos preparados con cereales. Los nutrientes están distribuidos de modo heterogéneo en los distintos componentes del grano (germen, endospermo, revestimiento de la semilla y distintas capas que lo recubren). No existe un patrón uniforme para los distintos tipos de cereales. Los efectos más importantes del procesamiento sobre el valor nutricional de los cereales están relacionados con:

La separación y extracción de partes del grano, dejando sólo una fracción de éste para el producto. Cualquier pérdida en el volumen origina una pérdida de nutrientes.
Las partes del grano que se desechan pueden contener una concentración de ciertos nutrientes (aumentando, entre otros aspectos, la proporción de nutrientes por peso).
El procesamiento en sí mismo puede traer consigo cambios en los nutrientes (la germinación, la fermentación, el sancochado).
La separación de las capas exteriores del grano, a pesar de que causa la pérdida de algunos nutrientes, puede resultar provechosa. Por ejemplo, la tanina se concentra en las capas exteriores del sorgo, por lo que su eliminación es esencial desde el punto de vista nutricional. Al convertir el arroz integral en arroz blanco se obtiene un producto más fácil de preparar.

Los cereales pasan por diferentes etapas a través de una compleja y gran cadena, que se inicia en la cosecha y termina en el consumo. Este proceso está formado básicamente por tres áreas distintas. La primera cubre desde la cosecha hasta el almacenado del grano. La segunda —los métodos preliminares de procesamiento— involucra un tratamiento adicional del grano, pero los productos todavía no se encontrarán aptos para ser consumidos directamente. Antes de su consumo, éstos deberán pasar por una tercera etapa de procesamiento, como por ejemplo el humeado.

Pilado: es el proceso por el cual se quita la cáscara al cereal, ya sea trigo, cebada, arroz, etc. Pulpa dentro de una cáscara.

La mayoría de los granos comestibles cosechados en los trópicos se pierde debido a los inadecuados sistemas de manejo, almacenado y técnicas de procesamiento. Se estima que estas pérdidas oscilan entre el 10 y el 25% de la cosecha. Las causas más comunes por las cuales se producen estas pérdidas son:

Infestación de parásitos e insectos durante el procesamiento postcosecha.
Pérdida de producción debido a la cosecha temprana.
Niveles incorrectos de humedad para el trillado, molido y pulverizado.
Pérdidas físicas debido a las malas técnicas de procesamiento, tanto preliminar como secundario.

Las especies que caben dentro de esta categoría agronómica pertenecen en su mayoría a la familia Poaceae (gramíneas), cuyo fruto es inseparable de la semilla; sin embargo también se incluye a veces a plantas con semillas semejantes a granos que son de otras familias, como laquinua, el alforfón, el amaranto, el huauzontle o el girasol. Algunos autores llaman a estas últimas especies falsos cereales o pseudocereales.

Las principales especies son:

El arroz.
El maíz.
El trigo.
La avena.
El sorgo.
El centeno.
La cebada.
El mijo.

Mixed flour bread

2009-06-22T17:16:00.000-07:00

Ingredients:

1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup boiling water
1 package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm (105 - 115 degrees) water
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup rye flour
2 1/4 - 2 3/4 cup all purpose flour

Instructions:

Mix cornmeal, brown sugar, salt and oil with boiling water, cool to lukewarm (105 - 115 degrees).

Dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup warm water; stir into cornmeal mixture. Add whole wheat and rye flours and mix well. Stir in enough all purpose flour to make dough stiff enough to knead.

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 to 10 minutes.

Place dough in lightly oiled bowl, turning oil top. Cover with clean towel; let rise in warm place until double, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down; turn onto clean surface. Cover with clean towel; let rest 10 minutes. Shape dough and place in greased 9 x 5 inch pan. Cover with clean towel; let rise until almost double, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake 35 to 45 minutes or until bread sounds hollow when tapped. Cover with aluminum foil during baking if bread is browning too quickly. Remove bread from pan and cool on wire rack.