health

Pickled Cucumber

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:22:13 +0100

Pickled cucumber

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A deli pickle.

A pickled cucumber, most often simply called a pickle in the United States and Canada, is a cucumber that has been pickled in a brine, vinegar, or other solutions and left to ferment for a period of time. Pickles can be produced by either immersing the cucumbers in an acidic solution or through souring by lacto-fermentation.

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1 Types
2 Nutrition
3 Serving
4 References
5 External links

Types

Gherkin

A gherkin is not only a pickle of a certain size but also a particular species of cucumber: the West Indian or Burr cucumber (Cucumis anguria), which produces a somewhat smaller fruit than the garden cucumber (Cucumis sativus).^[1] Standard pickles are made from the West Indian cucumber, but the term gherkin has become loosely used as any small cucumber pickled in a sweet vinegar brine, regardless of the variety of cucumber used.

Kosher dill

A "kosher" dill pickle is not necessarily kosher in the sense that it has been prepared under rabbinical supervision, which would ensure that no non-kosher ingredients were used, and that no utensil in contact with the pickles had ever been in contact with food that was not kosher. Rather, it is a pickle made in the traditional manner of Jewish New York City pickle makers, with generous addition of garlic to the brine.^[2]^[3]

At least one New York restaurant was serving dill pickles in the nineteenth century.^[4]

Polish

Polish "ogórek kiszony"

Polish style pickled cucumbers (Polish: ogórek kiszony, plural: ogórki kiszone) are a type of pickled cucumber developed in the northern parts of Europe and have been exported worldwide and are found in the cuisines of many countries. As opposed to some other varieties of pickled cucumbers, they are prepared using the traditional process of natural fermentation in a brine which makes them grow sour. There is no vinegar used in the brine of a Polish-style pickled cucumber.

The fermentation process is entirely dependent on the naturally-occurring yeast cells that normally cover the skin of a growing cucumber. Since these are routinely removed during commercial harvesting/packing processes, traditionally-prepared ogórki can only be made from freshly-harvested cucumbers, unless the yeast is artificially replaced.

Typically, small cucumbers are placed in a glass or ceramic vessel or a wooden barrel, together with a variety of spices. Among those traditionally used in many recipes are garlic, horseradish, whole dill stems with umbels and green seeds, white mustard seeds, oak, cherry, blackcurrant and bay laurel leaves, dried allspice fruits, and — most importantly — salt. The container is then filled with cooled, boiled water and kept under a non-airtight cover (often cloth tied on with string or a rubber band) for several weeks, depending on taste and external temperature. Traditionally stones, also sterilized by boiling, are placed on top of the cucumbers to keep them under the water. The more salt is added the more sour the cucumbers become. Since they are produced without vinegar, a scum of yeast forms on the top, but this does not indicate they have spoiled, and the scum is just removed. They do not, however, keep as long as cucumbers pickled with vinegar.

The concoction produced during the fermentation process is often consumed as a drink.

In Poland they are traditionally served as a side dish to vodka. In the United States, especially in Jewish communities and delis, they are sold alongside kosher dills in "full sour" and "half sour" varieties.

Lime

Lime pickles are soaked in lime rather than in a salt brine.^[5] Vinegar and sugar are often added after the 24-hour soak in lime, along with pickling spices, although this is done more to enhance texture (by making them crisper) than as a preservative. The lime is then rinsed off the pickles.

Bread and butter

A jar of bread-and-butter pickles

Bread-and-butter pickles are sweeter in flavor than dill pickles, having a high concentration of sugar or other sweetener added to the brine. Rather than being served alongside a sandwich,^{[citation needed]} they are more often used in fully-flavored sandwiches,^{[citation needed]} such as hamburgers, or used in potato salad. Cucumbers to be made into bread and butters are often sliced before pickling.

Swedish and Danish

Swedish pickled cucumbers (pressgurka) are thinly sliced, mixed with salt and pressed to drain some water from the cucumber slices. Afterwards placed in a jar with a sour-sweet brine of vinegar, salt, sugar, pepper and parsley.

Danish cucumber salad (agurkesalat) is similar, but the cucumbers are not pressed and the brine doesn't have parsley. The cucumber salad accompanies meat dishes, especially a roasted chicken dish (gammeldags kylling med agurkesalat), and is used on Danish hot dogs.

Kool-Aid Pickles (a.k.a. "Koolickles")

Kool-Aid pickles (enjoyed by children in parts of the Southern United States^[6]) are created by soaking dill pickles in a mixture of Kool-Aid and pickle brine.

Nutrition

Like pickled vegetables such as sauerkraut and dilly beans, sour pickled cucumbers (technically a fruit) are low in calories. They also contain a moderate amount of vitamin K, specifically in the form of K1. One sour pickled cucumber "spear" offers 12-16 µg, or approximately 15-20%, of the Recommended Daily Allowance of vitamin K. It also offers about 4 calories, all of which come from carbohydrate. However, most sour pickled cucumbers are also high in sodium; one spear can contain 350-500 mg, or 15-20% of the recommended daily American limit of 2400 mg.^[7]

Sweet pickled cucumbers, including bread-and-butter pickles, are higher in calories due to their sugar content; one large gherkin may contain 25-40 calories. However, sweet pickled cucumbers also tend to contain significantly less sodium than sour pickles.^[8]

Serving

A breaded pickle.

In the United States, pickles are often served as a "side" to various lunches in the form of a "pickle spear", which is a pickled cucumber cut length-wise into quarters or sixths. The pickle may be used as a condiment on a hamburger or other sandwich (usually in slice form), or on a sausage or hot dog in chopped form as pickle relish. A pickle slice is commonly referred to as a 'chip'.

Soured cucumbers are commonly used in a variety of dishes — for example, pickle-stuffed meatloaf,^[9] potato salad or chicken salad — or consumed alone as an appetizer.

Pickles have also been introduced in fried form, either deep-fried plain, or with a breading surrounding the spear.

References

^ Dr. Jerry Parsons, of Texas Cooperative Extension (Texas A&M) Aggie Horticulture
^ Brief note on kosher pickles in "The Pickle Wing" of nyfoodmuseum.org
^ Kashrut: Jewish Dietary Laws "Judaism 101"
^ Haan's Ladies' and Gentlemen's Restaurant, Park Row Building, New York, menu dated December 22, 1899: "Side Dishes ... Dill pickles 10"
^ Recipe Source
^ New York Times: A Sweet So Sour: Kool-Aid Dills
^ Nutritional information for pickles, cucumber, sour: NutritionData.com
^ Nutritional information for pickles, cucumber, sweet: NutritionData.com
^ Pickled Stuffed Meatloaf at ilovepickles.org

Battcock, Mike; Azam-Ali, Sue (1998), Fermented Fruits and Vegetables: A Global Perspective, Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, ISBN 92-5-104226-8, OCLC 41178885

External links

The Wiktionary definition of pickle

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickled_cucumber"

Hidden categories: Articles containing Polish language text | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from April 2009

Potato

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:18:49 +0100

Potato

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

For other uses, see Potato (disambiguation).

Potato

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Asterids
Order:	Solanales
Family:	Solanaceae
Genus:	Solanum
Species:	S. tuberosum

Binomial name

Solanum tuberosum
L.

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family (also known as the nightshades). The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes are the world's fourth largest food crop, following rice, wheat, and maize.^[1]

Wild potato species occur from the United States to Uruguay and Peru.^[2] Genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species suggest that the potato has a single origin in the area of southern Peru,^[3] from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex. Although Peru is essentially the birthplace of the potato, today over 99% of all cultivated potatoes worldwide are descendants of a subspecies indigenous to south-central Chile.^[4] Based on historical records, local agriculturalists, and DNA analyses, the most widely cultivated variety worldwide, Solanum tuberosum ssp. tuberosum, is believed to be indigenous to the Chiloé Archipelago where it was cultivated as long as 10,000 years ago.^[5]^[6]

The potato was introduced to Europe in 1536,^[7] and subsequently by European mariners to territories and ports throughout the world.^[8] Thousands of varieties persist in the Andes, where over 100 varieties might be found in a single valley, and a dozen or more might be maintained by a single agricultural household.^[9] Once established in Europe, the potato soon became an important food staple and field crop. But lack of genetic diversity, due to the fact that very few varieties were initially introduced, left the crop vulnerable to disease. In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, caused by the fungus-like oomycete Phytophthora infestans, spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western Ireland, resulting in the crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine. The potato was the first vegetable inherited by the early Australians, the Aborigines. Australia now leads the largest potato crops seen throughout the world.^[7]

The annual diet of an average global citizen in the first decade of the twenty-first century would include about 33 kilograms (or 73 lbs.) of potato. However, the local importance of potato is extremely variable and rapidly changing. The potato remains an essential crop in Europe (especially eastern and central Europe), where per capita production is still the highest in the world, but the most rapid expansion of potato over the past few decades has occurred in southern and eastern Asia. China is now the world's largest potato producing country, and nearly a third of the world's potatoes are harvested in China and India.^[10] More generally, the geographic shift of potato production has been away from wealthier countries toward lower-income areas of the world, although the degree of this trend is ambiguous.^[11]

Etymology

The English word potato comes from Spanish patata (the name used in Spain). The Spanish Royal Academy says the Spanish word is a compound of the Taino batata (sweet potato) and the Quechua papa (potato).^[12] This probably indicates that originally, the potato was regarded as a type of sweet potato rather than the other way around, despite the fact that there is actually no close relationship between the two plants at all. Potatoes are occasionally referred to as "Irish potatoes" in the English speaking world, to distinguish them from sweet potatoes. In certain dialects of English, particularly in North America, the words taters, potaters, and tatoes are sometimes used. In the UK the words spuds, taties and tatties are often used. In some dialects of English spoken in Ireland, potatoes are called praties, which, presumably, comes from prátaí, the plural form of the Irish word for potato, práta. As well, the Hebrew word for sweet potato, is batata (בטטה).

Romanian cartof, Ukrainian kartóplja (картопля) , Bulgarian kartof (картоф), Russian kartofel (kарҭофель), German Kartoffel, Danish kartoffel, Icelandic kartafla (or jarðepli, see below), Latvian kartupelis, and Estonian kartul (as well as many other similar names in various languages) all derive from the archaic Italian word tartufoli, which was given to potato because of its similarity to truffles (Italian: tartufo). However, the current Italian term for the potato is patata.

The French refer to the potato as pomme de terre. which literally means "earth apple". Other European translations include aardappel in Dutch, jarðepli in Icelandic (or kartafla, see above), Erdapfel in Austrian German, sib zamini (Persian: سیب‌زمینی) in Persian. It is called ziemniaki (or kartofle in some regions) in Polish, and zemiak in Slovak, both simply from the word for "ground". Also, this usage is found in Hebrew as tapuach adama (Hebrew: תפוח אדמה‎; lit. "earth apple") (often written just as תפו"א).

An analogous name in Finnish is peruna, which comes from the old Swedish jordpäron "earth pear".

In Marathi and Gujarati, the potato is called bataka or batata, while in most other South Asian languages, (e.g. Hindi, Nepali, Bengali) it is called Alu (आलू). In Telugu, it is called "Ulla gadda" (ఉల్ల గడ్డ) or "Bangaala dumpa" (బంగాల దుంప).

	This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.

Different names for the potato developed in China's various regions. The most widely used names in Standard Mandarin are "horse-bell yam" (simplified Chinese: 马铃薯; pinyin: mǎlíngshǔ), "earth bean" (simplified Chinese: 土豆; pinyin: tǔdòu), and "foreign taro" (simplified Chinese: 洋芋; pinyin: yángyù).

The Malay/Indonesian name is kentang.

Description

Flowers of a potato plant

Potato plants are herbaceous perennials that grow about 60 cm high, depending on variety, the culms dying back after flowering. They bear white, pink, red, blue or purple flowers with yellow stamens resembling those of other Solanaceous species such as tomato and aubergine. The tubers of varieties with white flowers generally have white skins, while those of varieties with colored flowers tend to have pinkish skins.^[13] Potatoes are cross-pollinated mostly by insects, including bumblebees that carry pollen from other potato plants, but a substantial amount of self-fertilizing occurs as well. Tubers form in response to decreasing day length, although this tendency has been minimized in commercial varieties.^[14]

Potato plants

After potato plants flower, some varieties will produce small green fruits that resemble green cherry tomatoes, each containing up to 300 true seeds. Potato fruit contains large amounts of the toxic alkaloid solanine, and is therefore unsuitable for consumption.

All new potato varieties are grown from seeds, also called "true seed" or "botanical seed" to distinguish it from seed tubers. By finely chopping the fruit and soaking it in water, the seeds will separate from the flesh by sinking to the bottom after about a day (the remnants of the fruit will float). Any potato variety can also be propagated vegetatively by planting tubers, pieces of tubers, cut to include at least one or two eyes, or also by cuttings, a practice used in greenhouses for the production of healthy seed tubers. Some commercial potato varieties do not produce seeds at all (they bear imperfect flowers) and are propagated only from tuber pieces. Confusingly, these tubers or tuber pieces are called "seed potatoes".

Genetics

The potatoes cultivated in the Andes are not all the same species. However, the major species grown worldwide is Solanum tuberosum (a tetraploid with 48 chromosomes). Modern varieties of this species are the most widely cultivated worldwide. There are also four diploid species (with 24 chromosomes): Solanum stenotomum, Solanum phureja, Solanum goniocalyx and Solanum ajanhuiri. There are two triploid species (with 36 chromosomes): Solanum chaucha and Solanum juzepczukii. There is one pentaploid cultivated species (with 60 chromosomes): Solanum curtilobum.

There are two major subspecies of Solanum tuberosum: andigena, or Andean; and tuberosum, or Chilean.^[15] The Andean potato is adapted to the short-day conditions prevalent in the mountainous equatorial and tropical regions where it originated. The Chilean potato is adapted to the long-day conditions prevalent in the higher latitude region of southern Chile, especially on Chiloé Archipelago where it is thought to have originated.^[16] Genetic testing done in 2005 shows that both species derive from a single origin in the area of southern Peru.^[17]

There are about five thousand potato varieties world wide. Three thousand of them are found in the Andes alone, mainly in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile and Colombia. They belong to eight or nine species, depending on the taxonomic school. Apart from the five thousand cultivated varieties, there are about 200 wild species and subspecies, many of which can be cross-bred with cultivated varieties, which has been done repeatedly to transfer resistances to certain pests and diseases from the gene pool of wild species to the gene pool of cultivated potato species. Genetically modified varieties have met public resistance in the United States and in the European Union.^[18]^[19]

Most modern potatoes grown in North America arrived through European settlement and not independently from the South American sources. However, at least one wild potato species, Solanum fendleri, is found as far north as Texas and used in breeding for resistance to a nematode species attacking cultivated potatoes. A secondary center of genetic variability of the potato is Mexico, where important wild species are found that have been used extensively in modern breeding, such as the hexaploid Solanum demissum, as a source of resistance to the devastating late blight disease. Another plant native to this region, Solanum bulbocastanum, a close relative of the potato, has been used to genetically engineer the potato to effectively resist potato blight.^[20]

The International Potato Center, based in Lima, Peru, holds an ISO-accredited collection of potato germplasm.^[21]

Role in world food supply

Top Potato Producers in 2006
(million metric tons)
People's Republic of China	70
Russia	39
India	24
United States	20
Ukraine	19
Germany	10
Poland	9
Belgium	8
Netherlands	7
France	6
World Total	315
Source: UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO)[1]

Although it was initially feared to be poisonous, the potato became an important staple crop in northern Europe. Famines in the early 1770s contributed to its acceptance, as did government policies in several European countries and climate change during the Little Ice Age, when traditional crops in this region did not produce as reliably as before.^[22]^[23] At times when and where most other crops would fail, potatoes could still typically be relied upon to contribute adequately to food supplies during the colder years. Its yield of Calories per acre (about 9.2 million) is higher than that of maize (7.5 million), rice (7.4 million), wheat (3 million), or soybean (2.8 million).^[24] The potato was not popular in France during this time, and it is believed that some of the infamous famines could have been lessened if French farmers had adopted it. Today, the potato forms an important part of the traditional cuisines of most of Europe. Belarus has the highest consumption of potato per capita with each Belorussian consuming 338 kg in 2005.^[25]^[26]

The potato was introduced in the Philippines during the late 16th century, and to Java and China during the 17th century. It was well-established as a crop in India by the late 18th century and in Africa by the mid-20th century.^[23]

Potato output in 2005

The United Nations FAO reports that the world production of potatoes in 2006 was 315 million tonnes. The largest producer, China, accounted for one quarter of the global output, followed by Russia and India.

In 2008, several international organizations began to give more emphasis to the potato as a key part of world food production, due to several developing economic problems. They cited the potato's potential for a beneficial role in world food production, owing to its status as a cheap and plentiful crop which can be raised in a wide variety of climates and locales.^[27] Due to perishability, only about 5% of the world's potato crop is traded internationally; its minimal presence in world financial markets contributed to its stable pricing during the 2007–2008 world food price crisis.^[28]^[29]

In recognition of this importance, the United Nations officially declared the year 2008 as the International Year of the Potato^[30] in order to "increase awareness of the importance of the potato as a food in developing nations" and calling the crop a "hidden treasure".^[31] This follows the International Rice Year in 2004.

[show] v • d • e Lists of countries by agricultural output rankings

Cereals	Barley · Buckwheat · Maize · Millet · Oats · Rice · Rye · Sorghum · Triticale · Wheat

Fruit	Apples · Bananas · Citrus (Oranges) · Tomatos

Other	Cacao · Coffee · Fish · Milk · Potato · Soybean · Sugar beet · Sugar cane · Sunflower · Tea · Tobacco · Wine

Related	Irrigation · Land use

Lists of countries · Lists by country · List of international rankings

Nutrition

Potato, raw, with peel
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)

Energy 80 kcal 320 kJ

Carbohydrates	19 g
- Starch 15 g
- Dietary fiber 2.2 g
Fat	0.1 g
Protein	2 g
Water	75 g
Thiamine (Vit. B1) 0.08 mg	6%
Riboflavin (Vit. B2) 0.03 mg	2%
Niacin (Vit. B3) 1.1 mg	7%
Vitamin B6 0.25 mg	19%
Vitamin C 20 mg	33%
Calcium 12 mg	1%
Iron 1.8 mg	14%
Magnesium 23 mg	6%
Phosphorus 57 mg	8%
Potassium 421 mg	9%
Sodium 6 mg	0%

Percentages are relative to US
recommendations for adults.

Potatoes contain vitamins and minerals that have been identified as vital to human nutrition. Humans can subsist healthily on a diet of potatoes and milk; the latter supplies Vitamin A and Vitamin D.^[23] A medium potato (150g/5.3 oz) with the skin provides 27 mg of vitamin C (45% of the Daily Value (DV)), 620 mg of potassium (18% of DV), 0.2 mg vitamin B6 (10% of DV) and trace amounts of thiamin, riboflavin, folate, niacin, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, and zinc. Moreover, the fiber content of a potato with skin (2 grams) equals that of many whole grain breads, pastas, and cereals. Potatoes also contain an assortment of phytochemicals, such as carotenoids and polyphenols.

Nutritionally, potatoes are best known for their carbohydrate content (approximately 26 grams in a medium potato). The predominant form of this carbohydrate is starch. A small but significant portion of this starch is resistant to digestion by enzymes in the stomach and small intestine, and so reaches the large intestine essentially intact. This resistant starch is considered to have similar physiological effects and health benefits as fiber: it provides bulk, offers protection against colon cancer, improves glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, lowers plasma cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations, increases satiety, and possibly even reduces fat storage (Cummings et al. 1996; Hylla et al. 1998; Raban et al. 1994). The amount of resistant starch in potatoes depends much on preparation methods. Cooking and then cooling potatoes significantly increased resistant starch. For example, cooked potato starch contains about 7% resistant starch, which increases to ab

Kitchen

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:09:09 +0100

Kitchen

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This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009)

A modern Western kitchen

A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation.

In the West, a modern kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a refrigerator and kitchen cabinets. Many households have a microwave oven, a dishwasher and other electric appliances. The main function of a kitchen is cooking or preparing food but it may also be used for dining and entertaining.

[hide]

1 History
2 Domestic kitchen planning
3 Other kitchen types
4 Kitchens types by region
- 4.1 Japan
5 See also
6 References
- 6.1 Bibliography

History

The evolution of the kitchen is linked to the invention of the cooking range or stove and the development of water infrastructure capable of supplying water to private homes. Until the 18th century, food was cooked over an open fire. Technical advances in heating food in the 18th and 19th centuries, changed the architecture of the kitchen. Before the advent of modern pipes, water was brought from an outdoor source such as wells, pumps or springs.

Antiquity

The houses in Ancient Greece were commonly of the atrium-type: the rooms were arranged around a central courtyard. In many such homes, a covered but otherwise open patio served as the kitchen. Homes of the wealthy had the kitchen as a separate room, usually next to a bathroom (so that both rooms could be heated by the kitchen fire), both rooms being accessible from the court. In such houses, there was often a separate small storage room in the back of the kitchen used for storing food and kitchen utensils.

In the Roman Empire, common folk in cities often had no kitchen of their own; they did their cooking in large public kitchens. Some had small mobile bronze stoves, on which a fire could be lit for cooking. Wealthy Romans had relatively well-equipped kitchens. In a Roman villa, the kitchen was typically integrated into the main building as a separate room, set apart for practical reasons of smoke and sociological reasons of the kitchen being operated by slaves. The fireplace was typically on the floor, placed at a wall—sometimes raised a little bit—such that one had to kneel to cook. There were no chimneys.

Middle Ages

The roasting spit in this European medieval kitchen was driven automatically by a propeller—the black cloverleaf-like structure in the upper left.

Early medieval European longhouses had an open fire under the highest point of the building. The "kitchen area" was between the entrance and the fireplace. In wealthy homes there was typically more than one kitchen. In some homes there were upwards of three kitchens. The kitchens were divided based on the types of food prepared in them.^[1] In place of a chimney, these early buildings had a hole in the roof through which some of the smoke could escape. Besides cooking, the fire also served as a source of heat and light to the single-room building. A similar design can be found in the Iroquois longhouses of North America.

In the larger homesteads of European nobles, the kitchen was sometimes in a separate sunken floor building to keep the main building, which served social and official purposes, free from indoor smoke.

The first known stoves in Japan date from about the same time. The earliest findings are from the Kofun period (3rd to 6th century). These stoves, called kamado, were typically made of clay and mortar; they were fired with wood or charcoal through a hole in the front and had a hole in the top, into which a pot could be hanged by its rim. This type of stove remained in use for centuries to come, with only minor modifications. Like in Europe, the wealthier homes had a separate building which served for cooking. A kind of open fire pit fired with charcoal, called irori, remained in use as the secondary stove in most homes until the Edo period (17th to 19th century). A kamado was used to cook the staple food, for instance rice, while irori served both to cook side dishes and as a heat source.

The kitchen remained largely unaffected by architectural advances throughout the Middle Ages; open fire remained the only method of heating food. European medieval kitchens were dark, smoky, and sooty places, whence their name "smoke kitchen". In European medieval cities around the 10th to 12th centuries, the kitchen still used an open fire hearth in the middle of the room. In wealthy homes, the ground floor was often used as a stable while the kitchen was located on the floor above, like the bedroom and the hall. In castles and monasteries, the living and working areas were separated; the kitchen was sometimes moved to a separate building, and thus could not serve anymore to heat the living rooms. In some castles the kitchen was retained in the same structure, but servants were strictly separated from nobles, by constructing separate spiral stone staircases for use of servants to bring food to upper levels. An extant example of such a medieval kitchen with servants' staircase is at Muchalls Castle in Scotland. In Japanese homes, the kitchen started to become a separate room within the main building at that time.

18th century cooks tended a fire and endured smoke in this Swiss farmhouse smoke kitchen.

With the advent of the chimney, the hearth moved from the center of the room to one wall, and the first brick-and-mortar hearths were built. The fire was lit on top of the construction; a vault underneath served to store wood. Pots made of iron, bronze, or copper started to replace the pottery used earlier. The temperature was controlled by hanging the pot higher or lower over the fire, or placing it on a trivet or directly on the hot ashes. Using open fire for cooking (and heating) was risky; fires devastating whole cities occurred frequently.

Leonardo da Vinci invented an automated system for a rotating spit for spit-roasting: a propeller in the chimney made the spit turn all by itself. This kind of system was widely used in wealthier homes. Beginning in the late Middle Ages, kitchens in Europe lost their home-heating function even more and were increasingly moved from the living area into a separate room. The living room was now heated by tiled stoves, operated from the kitchen, which offered the huge advantage of not filling the room with smoke.

Freed from smoke and dirt, the living room thus began to serve as an area for social functions and increasingly became a showcase for the owner's wealth. In the upper classes, cooking and the kitchen were the domain of the servants, and the kitchen was set apart from the living rooms, sometimes even far from the dining room. Poorer homes often did not have a separate kitchen yet; they kept the one-room arrangement where all activities took place, or at the most had the kitchen in the entrance hall.

The medieval smoke kitchen (or Farmhouse kitchen) remained common, especially in rural farmhouses and generally in poorer homes, until much later. In a few European farmhouses, the smoke kitchen was in regular use until the middle of the 20th century. These houses often had no chimney, but only a smoke hood above the fireplace, made of wood and covered with clay, used to smoke meat. The smoke rose more or less freely, warming the upstairs rooms and protecting the woodwork from vermin.

Colonial American kitchens

In Colonial America, the pioneers cooked over a fireplace in a corner of the cabin. The kitchen became a separate room only later. In the south, where the climate and sociological conditions differed, the kitchen was often relegated to an outhouse, separate from the mansion, for much of the same reasons as in the feudal kitchen in medieval Europe: the kitchen was operated by slaves, and their working place had to be separated from the living area of the masters by the social standards of the time. Separate "summer kitchens" were also common on large farms in the north. These were used to prepare meals for harvest workers and tasks such as canning.

Industrialization

A typical rural American kitchen of 1918 at The Sauer-Beckmann Farmstead, Texas

Technological advances during industrialization brought major changes to the kitchen. Iron stoves, which enclosed the fire completely and were more efficient, appeared. Early models included the Franklin stove around 1740, which was a furnace stove intended for heating, not for cooking. Benjamin Thompson in England designed his "Rumford stove" around 1800. This stove was much more energy efficient than earlier stoves; it used one fire to heat several pots, which were hung into holes on top of the stove and were thus heated from all sides instead of just from the bottom. However, his stove was designed for large kitchens; it was too big for domestic use. The "Oberlin stove" was a refinement of the technique that resulted in a size reduction; it was patented in the U.S. in 1834 and became a commercial success with some 90,000 units sold over the next 30 years. These stoves were still fired with wood or coal. Although the first gas street lamps were installed in Paris, London, and Berlin at the beginning of the 1820s and the first U.S. patent on a gas stove was granted in 1825, it was not until the late 19th century that using gas for lighting and cooking became commonplace in urban areas.

The urbanization in the second half of the 19th century induced other significant changes that would ultimately change the kitchen. Out of sheer necessity, cities began planning and building water distribution pipes into homes, and built sewers to deal with the waste water. Gas pipes were laid; gas was used first for lighting purposes, but once the network had grown sufficiently, it also became available for heating and cooking on gas stoves. At the turn of the 20th century, electricity had been mastered well enough to become a commercially viable alternative to gas and slowly started replacing the latter. But like the gas stove, the electrical stove had a slow start. The first electrical stove had been presented in 1893 at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, but it was not until the 1930s that the technology was stable enough and began to take off.

Industrialization also caused social changes. The new factory working class in the cities was housed under generally poor conditions. Whole families lived in small one or two-room apartments in tenement buildings up to six stories high, badly aired and with insufficient lighting. Sometimes, they shared apartments with "night sleepers", unmarried men who paid for a bed at night. The kitchen in such an apartment was often used as a living and sleeping room, and even as a bathroom. Water had to be fetched from wells and heated on the stove. Water pipes were laid only towards the end of the 19th century, and then often only with one tap per building or per story. Brick-and-mortar stoves fired with coal remained the norm until well into the second half of the century. Pots and kitchenware were typically stored on open shelves, and parts of the room could be separated from the rest using simple curtains.

In contrast, there were no dramatic changes for the upper classes. The kitchen, located in the basement or the ground floor, continued to be operated by servants. In some houses, water pumps were installed, and some even had kitchen sinks and drains (but no water on tap yet, except for some feudal kitchens in castles). The kitchen became a much cleaner space with the advent of "cooking machines", closed stoves made of iron plates and fired by wood and increasingly charcoal or coal, and that had flue pipes connected to the chimney. For the servants the kitchen continued to also serve as a sleeping room; they slept either on the floor, or later in narrow spaces above a lowered ceiling, for the new stoves with their smoke outlet no longer required a high ceiling in the kitchen. The kitchen floors were tiled; kitchenware was neatly stored in cupboards to protect them from dust and steam. A large table served as a workbench; there were at least as many chairs as there were servants, for the table in the kitchen also doubled as the eating place for the servants.

The middle class tried to imitate the luxurious dining styles of the upper class as best as it could. Living in smaller apartments, the kitchen was the main room—here, the family lived. The study or living room was saved for special occasions such as an occasional dinner invitation. Because of this, these middle-class kitchens were often more homely than those of the upper class, where the kitchen was a work-only room occupied only by the servants. Besides a cupboard to store the kitchenware, there were a table and chairs, where the family would dine, and sometimes—if space allowed—even a fauteuil or a couch.

Gas pipes were first laid in the late 19th century, and gas stoves started to replace the older coal-fired stoves. Gas was more expensive than coal, though, and thus the new technology was first installed in the wealthier homes. Where workers' apartments were equipped with a gas stove, gas distribution would go through a coin meter.

In rural areas, the older technology using coal or wood stoves or even brick-and-mortar open fireplaces remained common throughout. Gas and water pipes were first installed in the big cities; small villages were connected only much later.

Rationalization

The Poggenpohl kitchen, 1892

To streamline work processes, Taylorism and time-motion studies were used to optimize processes. The German kitchen brand 'Poggenpohl', established in 1892 by Friedemir Poggenpohl, introduced ergonomic work-top heights & storage chutes that were later adopted by Schütte-Lihotzk's Frankfurt Kitchen. These ideas also spilled over into domestic kitchen architecture because of a growing trend that called for a professionalization of household work, noted in the mid-19th century by Catharine Beecher and amplified by Christine Frederick's publications in the 1910s.

The Frankfurt kitchen using Taylorist principles

Working class women frequently worked in factories to ensure the family's survival, as the men's wages often did not suffice. Social housing projects led to the next milestone: the "Frankfurt kitchen". Developed in 1926, this kitchen measured 1.9 m by 3.4 m (approximately 6 ft 2 inby 11 ft 2 in, with a standard layout. It was built for two purposes: to optimize kitchen work to reduce cooking time (so that women would have more time for the factory) and to lower the cost of building decently-equipped kitchens. The design, created by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, was the result of detailed time-motion studies and heavily influenced by the railway dining car kitchens of the period. It was built in some 10,000 apartments in a social housing project of architect Ernst May in Frankfurt.

The initial reception was heavily critical: people were not accustomed to the changed processes also designed by Schütte-Lihotzky; it was so small that only one person could work in it; some storage spaces intended for raw loose food ingredients such as flour were reachable by children. But the Frankfurt kitchen embodied a standard for the rest of the 20th century in rental apartments: the "work kitchen". Too small to live or dine in, it was soon criticized as "exiling the women in the kitchen", but the post-World War II conservatism coupled with economic reasons prevailed. The kitchen once more was seen as a work place that needed to be separated from the living areas. Practical reasons also played a role in this development: just as in the bourgeois homes of the past, one reason for separating the kitchen was to keep the steam and smells of cooking out of the living room.

Friedemir Poggenpohl, led innovation in the kitchen area by presenting the 'reform kitchen' in 1928 with interconnecting cabinets & functional interiors. The reform kitchen was a forerunner to the later unit kitchen, & fitted kitchen. In 1950, Poggenpohl presents the form 1000, the world's first unit kitchen, at the Furniture Fair in Cologne.

Technicalization

Stainless steel home appliances popular in modern western kitchens

The idea of standardized dimensions and layout developed for the Frankfurt kitchen took hold while Poggenpohl began exporting to neighboring countries which for the first time required a kitchen specifier known today as a kitchen designer. The equipment used remained a standard for years to come: hot and cold water on tap and a kitchen sink and an electrical or gas stove and oven. Not much later, the refrigerator was added as a standard item. The concept was refined in the "Swedish kitchen" using unit furniture with wooden fronts for the kitchen cabinets. Soon the concept was amended by the use of smooth synthetic door and drawer fronts, first in white, recalling a sense of cleanliness and alluding to sterile lab or hospital settings, but soon after in more lively colors, too. A trend began in the 1940s in the United States to equip the kitchen with electrified small and large kitchen appliances such as blenders, toasters, and later also microwave ovens. Following the end of World War II, massive demand in Europe for low-price, high-tech consumer goods led to Western European kitchens being designed to accommodate new appliances such as refrigerators and electric/gas cookers.

Parallel to this development in tenement buildings was the evolution of the kitchen in homeowner's houses. There, the kitchens usually were somewhat larger, suitable for everyday use as a dining room, but otherwise the ongoing technicalization was the same, and the use of unit furniture also became a standard in this market sector.

General technocentric enthusiasm even led some designers to take the "work kitchen" approach even further, culminating in futuristic designs like Luigi Colani's "kitchen satellite" (1969, commissioned by the German high-end kitchen manufacturer Poggenpohl for an exhibit), in which the room was reduced to a ball with a chair in the middle and all appliances at arm's length, an optimal arrangement maybe for "applying heat to food", but not necessarily for actual cooking. Such extravaganzas remained outside the norm, though.

In the former Eastern bloc countries, the official doctrine viewed cooking as a mere necessity, and women should work "for the society" in factories, not at home. Also, housing had to be built at low costs and quickly, which led directly to the standardized apartment block using prefabricated slabs. The kitchen was reduced to its minimums and the "work kitchen" paradigm taken to its extremes: in East Germany for instance, the standard tenement block of the model "P2" had tiny 4 m² kitchens in the inside of the building (no windows), connected to the dining and living room of the 55 m² apartment and separated from the latter by a pass-through or a window.

Open kitchens

Starting in the 1980s, the perfection of the extractor hood allowed an open kitchen again, integrated more or less with the living room without causing the whole apartment or house to smell. Before that, only a few earlier experiments, typically in newly built upper middle class family homes, had open kitchens. Examples are Frank Lloyd Wright's House Willey (1934) and House Jacobs (1936). Both had open kitchens, with high ceilings (up to the roof) and were aired by skylights. The extractor hood made it possible to build open kitchens in apartments, too, where both high ceilings and skylights were not possible.

The re-integration of the kitchen and the living area went hand in hand with a change in the perception of cooking: increasingly, cooking was seen as a creative and sometimes social act instead of work, especially in upper social classes. Besides, many families also appreciated the trend towards open kitchens, as it made it easier for the parents to supervise the children while cooking. The enhanced status of cooking also made the kitchen a prestige object for showing off one's wealth or cooking professionalism. Some architects have capitalized on this "object" aspect of the kitchen by designing freestanding "kitchen objects". However, like their precursor, Colani's "kitchen satellite", such futuristic designs are exceptions.

Another reason for the trend back to open kitchens (and a foundation of the "kitchen object" philosophy) is changes in how food is prepared. Whereas prior to the 1950s most cooking started out with raw ingredients and a meal had to be prepared from scratch, the advent of frozen meals and pre-prepared convenience food changed the cooking habits of many people, who consequently used the kitchen less and less. For others, who followed the "cooking as a social act" trend, the open kitchen had the advantage that they could be with their guests while cooking, and for the "creative cooks" it might even become a stage for their cooking performance. The "Trophy Kitchen" is highly equipped with very expensive and sophisticated appliances which are used primarily to impress visitors and to project social status, rather than for actual cooking.

Domestic kitchen planning

Beecher's "model kitchen" brought early ergonomic principles to the home

Domestic kitchen design per se is a relatively recent discipline. The first ideas to optimize the work in the kitchen go back to Catharine Beecher's A Treatise on Domestic Economy (1843, revised and republished together with her sister Harriet Beecher Stowe as The American Woman's Home in 1869). Beecher's "model kitchen" propagated for the first time a systematic design based on early ergonomics. The design included regular shelves on the walls, ample work space, and dedicated storage areas for various food items. Beecher even separated the functions of preparing food and cooking it altogether by moving the stove into a compartment adjacent to the kitchen.

Christine Frederick published from 1913 a series of articles on "New Household Management" in which she analyzed the kitchen following Taylorist principles, presented detailed time-motion studies, and derived a kitchen design from them. Her ideas were taken up in the 1920s by architects in Germany and Austria, most notably Bruno Taut, Erna Meyer, and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. A social housing project in Frankfurt (the Römerstadt of architect Ernst May) realized in 1927/8 was the breakthrough for her Frankfurt kitchen, which embodied this new notion of efficiency in the kitchen.

While this "work kitchen" and variants derived from it were a great success for tenement buildings, home owners had different demands and did not want to be constrained by a 6.4 m² kitchen. Nevertheless, kitchen design was mostly ad-hoc following the whims of the architect. In the U.S., the "Small Homes Council", since 1993 the "Building Research Council", of the School of Architecture of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was founded in 1944 with the goal to improve the state of the art in home building, originally with an emphasis on standardization for cost reduction. It was there that the notion of the kitchen work triangle was formalized: the three main functions in a kitchen are storage, preparation, and cooking (which Catharine Beecher had already recognized), and the places for these functions should be arranged in the kitchen in such a way that work at one place does not interfere with work at another place, the distance between these places is not unnecessarily large, and no obstacles are in the way. A natural arrangement is a triangle, with the refrigerator, the sink, and the stove at a vertex each.

This observation led to a few common kitchen forms, commonly characterized by the arrangement of the kitchen cabinets and sink, stove, and refrigerator:

A single-file kitchen (or one-way galley) has all of these along one wall; the work triangle degenerates to a line. This is not optimal, but often the only solution if space is restricted. This may be common in an attic space that is being converted into a living space, or a studio apartment.
The double-file kitchen (or two-way galley) has two rows of cabinets at opposite walls, one containing the stove and the sink, the other the refrigerator. This is the classical work kitchen.
In the L-kitchen, the cabinets occupy two adjacent walls. Again, the work triangle is preserved, and there may even be space for an additional table at a third wall, provided it does not intersect the triangle.
A U-kitchen has cabinets along three walls, typically with the sink at the base of the "U". This is a typical work kitchen, too, unless the two other cabinet rows are short enough to place a table at the fourth wall.
The block kitchen (or island) is a more recent development, typically found in open kitchens. Here, the stove or both the stove and the sink are placed where an L or U kitchen would have a table, in a freestanding "island", separated from the other cabinets. In a closed room, this does not make much sense, but in an open kitchen, it makes the stove accessible from all sides such that two persons can cook together, and allows for contact with guests or the rest of the family, since the cook does not face the wall anymore.

In the 1980s there was a backlash against industrial kitchen planning and cabinets with people installing a mix of work surfaces and free standing furniture, led by kitchen designer Johnny Grey and his concept of the "Unfitted Kitchen".

Modern kitchens often have enough informal space to allow for people to eat in it without having to use the formal dining room. Such areas are called "breakfast areas", "breakfast nooks" or "breakfast bars" if the space is integrated into a kitchen counter. Kitchens with enough space to eat in are sometimes called "eat-in kitchens".

Other kitchen types

canteen kitchen

Restaurant and canteen kitchens found in hotels, hospitals, educational & work place facilities, army barracks, and similar establishments are generally (in developed countries) subject to public health laws. They are inspected periodically by public-health officials, and forced to close if they do not meet hygienic requirements mandated by law.

Canteen kitchens (and castle kitchens) were often the places where new technology was used first. For instance, Benjamin Thompson's "energy saving stove", an early-19th century fully-closed iron stove using one fire to heat several pots, was designed for large kitchens; another thirty years passed before they were adapted for domestic use.

Today's western restaurant kitchens typically have tiled walls and floors and use stainless steel for other surfaces (workbench, but also door and drawer fronts) because these materials are durable and easy to clean. Professional kitchens are often equipped with gas stoves, as these allow cooks to regulate the heat quicker and more finely than electrical stoves. Some special appliances are typical for professional kitchens, such as large installed deep fryers, steamers, or a Bain Marie. (As of 2004^[update], steamers—not to be confused with a pressure cooker—are beginning to find their way into domestic households, sometimes as a combined appliance of oven and steamer.)

The Food Technology room at Marling School in Stroud, Gloucestershire.

The fast food and convenience food trends have also changed the way restaurant kitchens operate. There is a trend for restaurants to only "finish" delivered convenience food or even just re-heat completely prepared meals, maybe at the utmost grilling a hamburger or a steak.

The kitchens in railway dining cars present special challenges: space is constrained, and nevertheless the personnel must be able to serve a great number of meals quickly. Especially in the early history of the railway this required flawless organization of processes; in modern times, the microwave oven and prepared meals have made this task a lot easier. Galleys are kitchens aboard ships or aircraft (although the term galley is also often used to refer to a railroad dining car's kitchen). On yachts, galleys are often cramped, with one or two gas burners fuelled by a gas bottle, but kitchens on cruise ships or large warships are comparable in every respect with restaurants or canteen kitchens. On passenger airplanes, the kitchen is reduced to a mere pantry, the only function reminiscent of a kitchen is the heating of in-flight meals delivered by a catering company. An extreme form of the kitchen occurs in space, e.g. aboard a Space Shuttle (where it is also called the "galley") or the International Space Station. The astronauts' food is generally completely prepared, dehydrated, and sealed in plastic pouches, and the kitchen is reduced to a rehydration and heating module.

Outdoor areas in which food is prepared are generally not considered to be kitchens, although an outdoor area set up for regular food preparation, for instance when camping, might be called an "outdoor kitchen". Military camps and similar temporary settlements of nomads may have dedicated kitchen tents.

In Schools where Home Economics (HE) or Food technology (previously known as Domestic science) is taught, there will be a series of kitchens with multiple equipment (similar in some respects to laboratories) solely for the purpose of teaching. These will consist of between 6 and 12 workstations, each with their own oven, sink and kitchen utensils.

Kitchens types by region

Japan

Main article: Japanese kitchen

Kitchens in Japan are called Daidokoro (台所;lit. "kitchen"). Daidokoro is the place where food is prepared in a Japanese house. Until the Meiji era, a kitchen was also called kamado (かまど; lit. stove) and t

Sandwish

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:05:13 +0100

Sandwich

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This article's introduction section may not adequately summarize its contents. To comply with Wikipedia's lead section guidelines, please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of the article's key points. (May 2009)

For other uses, see Sandwich (disambiguation).

A sandwich is a food item made of one or more slices of bread^[1] with one or more fillings.^[2] The bread can be used as is, or it can be coated with butter, oil, mustard or other condiments to enhance flavor and texture.

[hide]

1 History
- 1.1 Etymology
2 Usage
3 List of regional sandwich styles
4 Gallery
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

History

An Italian sandwich

Bread has been eaten with other food since its creation in Neolithic times. For example, the ancient Jewish sage Hillel the Elder is said to have wrapped meat from the Paschal lamb and bitter herbs in a matzah (or flat, unleavened bread) during Passover,^[3] but the concept of a sandwich (as opposed to a wrap) is more recent. During the Middle Ages, thick slabs of coarse and usually stale bread, called "trenchers", were used as plates. After a meal, the food-soaked trencher was fed to a dog or to beggars, or eaten by the diner. Trenchers were as much the harbingers of open-face sandwiches^[4] as they were of disposable dishware. The immediate cultural precursor with a direct connection to the English sandwich was to be found in the Netherlands of the 17th century, where the naturalist John Ray observed^[5] that in the taverns beef hung from the rafters "which they cut into thin slices and eat with bread and butter laying the slices upon the butter"— explanatory specifications that reveal the Dutch belegde broodje was as yet unfamiliar in England.

If it was initially perceived as food men shared while gaming and drinking at night, the sandwich slowly began appearing in polite society as a late-night meal among the aristocracy. The sandwich's popularity in Spain and England increased dramatically during the 19th century, when the rise of an industrial society and the working classes made fast, portable, and inexpensive meals essential.^[6]

It was at the same time that the sandwich finally began to appear outside of Europe. In the United States, the sandwich was first promoted as an elaborate meal at supper. By the early 20th century, as bread became a staple of the American diet, the sandwich became the same kind of popular, quick meal as was widespread in the Mediterranean.^[6]

Etymology

The first written usage of the English word appeared in Edward Gibbon's journal, in longhand, referring to "bits of cold meat" as a 'Sandwich'.^[7] It was named after John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, an 18th-century English aristocrat, although he was neither the inventor nor sustainer of the food. It is said that he ordered his valet to bring him meat tucked between two pieces of bread, and because Montague also happened to be the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, others began to order "the same as Sandwich!"^[4] It is said that Lord Sandwich was fond of this form of food because it allowed him to continue playing cards, particularly cribbage, while eating without getting his cards greasy from eating meat with his bare hands.^[4]

The rumour in its familiar form appeared in Pierre-Jean Grosley's Londres (Neichatel, 1770), translated as A Tour to London 1772;^[8] Grosley's impressions had been formed during a year in London, 1765. The sober alternative is provided by Sandwich's biographer, N. A. M. Rodger, who suggests Sandwich's commitments to the navy, to politics and the arts mean the first sandwich was more likely to have been consumed at his desk.

Usage

Sandwiches are a widely popular type of food. They are taken to work, school or picnics to be eaten as part of a packed lunch. They generally contain a combination of salad vegetables, meat, cheese, and a variety of sauces. They are widely sold in restaurants and cafes.

The term sandwich is occasionally used (informally) in reference to open-faced sandwiches; these normally consist of a single slice of bread topped with meat, salad vegetables, and various condiments, and differs from a normal sandwich in having a single slice of bread instead of two, with toppings instead of a filling.^[9] The open-faced sandwich also has a history differing from that of the true sandwich, having originated between the 6th and 16th centuries, with stale slices of bread used as plates called "Trenchers" (whereas its relative, the modern sandwich, traces its roots to the Earl of Sandwich instead),^[4] In the United States, a court in Boston, Massachusetts ruled that "sandwich" includes at least two slices of bread. ^[2] and "under this definition and as dictated by common sense, this court finds that the term "sandwich" is not commonly understood to include burritos, tacos, and quesadillas, which are typically made with a single tortilla and stuffed with a choice filling of meat, rice, and beans."^[10] The issue was whether a restaurant which sold burritos could move into a shopping center where another restaurant had a no-compete clause in its lease prohibiting other "sandwich" shops.

The verb to sandwich has the meaning to position anything between two other things of a different character, or to place different elements alternately^[11], and the noun has other meanings derived from this more general definition.

List of regional sandwich styles

Some of these are distinguished primarily by the bread or method of preparation, rather than the filling.

Bacon sandwich—Primarily popular in the UK. Sandwich made from strips of bacon.
Banh Mi—Vietnam
Barros Jarpa—Chile, melted cheese and fried ham
Barros Luco—Chile, melted cheese and thin fried beef
Bauru—Brazil, melted cheese and roast beef
BLT -USA, bacon, lettuce, and tomato
Breakfast Roll UK & Ireland
Bun Kabab—Pakistan
Butterbrot—Germany, Graubrot (grey bread)
Caprese—mozzarella, tomato, fresh basil
Cheesesteak—Philadelphia, sandwich made from strips of steak and cheese, sometimes with peppers and onions
Chimichurris—Dominican Republic, a sandwich made from pork, beef, and sometimes chicken with mayonnaise/ketchup sauce and cabbage.
Chipped ham—USA (Pittsburgh, PA—made popular by the Isaly's Dairy Store chain)
Chip butty—UK, chips
Chivito—Uruguay, steak, ham, and cheese
Choripán—Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, grilled chorizo
Club sandwich—USA primarily, variety of fillings
Crisp sandwich—global, uses crisps/potato chips in situ
Croque-monsieur—France, ham and cheese
Cuban sandwich—Cuba/South Florida, ham, Swiss cheese and roasted pork
Cucumber sandwich—England afternoon tea classic
Dagwood sandwich—USA, distinguished by size more than contents
Elvis sandwich—USA, fried sandwich containing peanut butter, bananas, and sometimes bacon
Falafel—typically served in pita bread
Fluffernutter, New England variation on peanut butter and jelly
Francesinha—Portugal, made with wet-cured ham, linguiça, other sausages and meat, covered with molten cheese and beer sauce
Grilled cheese sandwich-USA, British Commonwealth (as Cheese Toastie), fried or broiled sandwich consisting of melted cheese between slices of buttered bread.
Gyros-pita or Souvlaki-pita—Greece, meat in pita bread
Hamburger—USA, ground meat patty in a round bun
Hero sandwich—New York, sub
Hoagie—Pennsylvania, South Jersey, Delaware, similar to sub, uses olive oil
Horseshoe sandwich—Springfield, IL, an open sandwich topped with French fries and cheese sauce
Hot Brown—USA (Kentucky)
Hotdog—Sausage in an oblong bun (origins disputed)
Italian beef—thin slices of seasoned roast beef, dripping with meat juices, on a dense, long Italian-style roll, believed to have originated in Chicago, where its history dates back at least to the 1930s
Kummelweck—Buffalo, New York colloquially "beef on weck", roast beef and horseradish on a Kaiser roll topped with pretzel salt and caraway seeds
Manwich—USA, a sandwich characterized by meat that exceeds the size of the bread, usually made with some sort of beef
Melt sandwich, Tuna melt, Patty melt, etc.—filling includes melted cheese
Monte Cristo sandwich—USA, based on fried bread
Montreal Smoked meat—Canada/Quebec
Mother-in-law sandwich—Chicagoland fast food staple that features a Mississippi tamale nestled in a hot dog bun and smothered with chili
Muffuletta—New Orleans, based on Sicilian bread
Panini—Italy, refers to type of bread
Pastrami on rye—Classic of the Jewish deli
Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
Ploughmans A popular UK sandwich compromising of cheese, pickle, tomato, lettuce and onion
Printzesa-(Princess) Bulgarian. Slice of bread with ground pork/veal, kashkaval, feta or combination and broiled
Po' boy (literally "poor boy")—USA/New Orleans, similar to sub
Porilainen—Finland, a bread with thick slice of sausage
Reuben sandwich—USA, sauerkraut with Swiss cheese and corned beef or pastrami
Roti john—A variation of sandwich that is very popular in Singapore and Malaysia
Sandwich loaf—USA, a large multi-layer sandwich made to look like a cake
Sandwiches de miga—Argentina
Shaobing Youtiao- China
Shawarma—a Middle Eastern-style sandwich usually composed of shaved lamb, goat, and/or turkey, rolled inside a taboon bread.
Sloppy Joe—USA, based on ground beef and flavorings
Smörgåstårta—Sweden, variety of "sandwich cake"
Steamed Sandwich—USA/Kentucky
Submarine sandwich or sub—USA
Tea sandwich—small sandwiches for afternoon tea
Toasted sandwich
Torta—Mexico
Vada pav—India

Gallery

Club sandwich	French bread sandwich with chips/fries.	Sandwich making	Panino
A Philly cheese steak, a type of submarine sandwich.

References

^ Britannica Online
^ ^a ^b Abelson, Jenn. "Arguments spread thick". The Boston Globe, November 10, 2006. Accessed 27 May 2009.
^ Bavli Pesachim 115a; See also Passover Hagadah
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d What's Cooking America, Sandwiches, History of Sandwiches. February 2, 2007.
^ Ray, Observations topographical, moral, & physiological; made in a journey through part of the Low Countries, Germany, Italy, and France... (vol. I, 1673) quoted in Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches (1987:152).
^ ^a ^b Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, Solomon H. Katz, editor (Charles Scribner's Sons: New York) 2003
^ The Oxford English Dictionary gives its appearance as 1762.
^ Grosley, Londres (Neuchatel, 1770) and A Tour to London, or, New observations on England and its inhabitants, translated from the French by Thomas Nugent (London: Printed for Lockyer Davis) 1772; Hexmasters Faktoider: Sandwich: English quotes from Grosley 1772
^ http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/sandwich?view=uk
^ White City Shopping Ctr., LP v. PR Rests., LLC, 21 Mass. L. Rep. 565 (Mass. Super. Ct. 2006)
^ The Oxford English Dictionary

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sandwich

Wikibooks Cookbook has a recipe/module on

Sandwich

The British Sandwich Association
Scanwich - Scanned Sandwiches for Education and Delight—Blog documenting different types of sandwiches available in New York City by scanning their cross-sections

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Styles	Immigrant · Fusion · Fast food

Food	Bread ·Pasta · Noodle · Cheese · Rice · Fruit · Salad · Vegetable · Sandwich · Sauce · Meat · Soup · Dessert · Dip · Pizza · Stew · Confectionery

Technical	Techniques · Utensils · Weights and measures

See also	Kitchen · Meal (Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner) · Wikibooks:Cookbook • List of cuisines

French Fries

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 08:55:31 +0100

French fries

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The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page.

French fries/chips
Origin
A bowl of french fries
Alternate name(s)	Chips, fries, french-fried potatoes, steak fries
Place of origin	Belgium
Dish details
Course served	Main meal
Serving temperature	Hot
Main ingredient(s)	Potatoes

French fries (North American English, sometimes capitalized^[1]), chips (English), fries,^[2] or french-fried potatoes (formal) are thin strips of potato that have been deep-fried. They are popular in many countries and go by many names in various languages. A distinction is sometimes made between fries and chips. North Americans often refer to any elongated pieces of fried potatoes as fries, while in other parts of the world, long slices of potatoes are sometimes called fries to contrast them with the thickly cut strips, which are often referred to as chips.^[3] French fries are known as frites or pommes frites in many parts of Europe, and have names that mean "french potatoes" in others (Icelandic Franskar kartöflur, Finnish Ranskalaiset perunat).

Etymology

Oven baked

The straightforward explanation of the term is that it means potatoes fried in the French sense of the verb "to cook", which can mean either sautéing or deep-grease frying, while its French origin, frire, unambiguously means deep-frying, frites being its past participle used with a plural feminine substantive, as in pommes de terre frites ("deep-fried potatoes").^[4]^[5] Thomas Jefferson at a White House dinner in 1802 served "potatoes served in the French manner".^[6]^[4]^[7] In the early 20th century, the term "French fried" was being used for foods such as onion rings or chicken, apart from potatoes.^[8]^[9]

The verb "to french", though not attested until after "French fried potatoes" had appeared, can refer to "julienning" of vegetables as is acknowledged by some dictionaries,^[10] while others only refer to trimming the meat off the shanks of chops.^[11] In the UK, "Frenched" lamb chops (particularly for serving as a "rack of lamb") have the majority of the fat removed together with a small piece of fatty meat from between the ends of the chop bones, leaving mainly only the meat forming the "eye" of the chop attached.

Culinary origin

Belgium

Belgian historian Jo Gerard recounts that potatoes were already fried in 1680 in the Spanish Netherlands, in the area of "the Meuse valley between Dinant and Liège, Belgium. The poor inhabitants of this region allegedly had the custom of accompanying their meals with small fried fish, but when the river was frozen and they were unable to fish, they cut potatoes lengthwise and fried them in oil to accompany their meals."^[12]^[13]^[14]^[15]

A Belgian legend claims that the term "French" was introduced when British or American soldiers arrived in Belgium during World War I, and consequently tasted Belgian fries. They supposedly called them "French", as it was the official language of the Belgian Army at that time.^[15]

Whether or not Belgians invented them, "frites" became the national snack and a substantial part of both national dishes, making the Belgians their largest per capita consumers^{[citation needed]} in Europe and their "symbolic" creators.

France

Many Americans attribute the dish to France — although in France they are almost exclusively thought of as Belgian — and offer as evidence a notation by U.S. President Thomas Jefferson. "Pommes de terre frites à cru, en petites tranches" ("Potatoes deep-fried while raw, in small cuttings") in a manuscript in Thomas Jefferson's hand (circa 1801-1809) and the recipe almost certainly comes from his French chef, Honoré Julien.^[4] In addition, from 1813^[16] on, recipes for what can be described as french fries, occur in popular American cookbooks. By the late 1850s, one of these mentions the term "French fried potatoes".^[17]

Recipes for fried potatoes (not clearly specified how) in French cookbooks date back at least to Menon's Les soupers de la cour (1755). It is true that eating potatoes was promoted in France by Parmentier, but he did not mention fried potatoes in particular. In French, they are simply called "pommes de terres frites" or, more commonly, simply "pommes frites" or "frites".

Spain

Some claim that the dish was invented in Spain, the first European country in which the potato appeared via the New World colonies, and assumes the first appearance to have been as an accompaniment to fish dishes in Galicia,^{[citation needed]} from which it spread to the rest of the country and further to the Spanish Netherlands, more than a century before Belgium was created there.

Professor Paul Ilegems, curator of the Friet-museum in Antwerp, Belgium, believes that Saint Teresa of Ávila fried the first chips, referring also to the tradition of frying in Mediterranean cuisine.^[18]^[14]

Spreading popularity

United Kingdom

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The first chip fried in Britain was apparently on the site of Oldham's Tommyfield Market in 1860. In Scotland, chips were first sold in Dundee, "...in the 1870s, that glory of British gastronomy – the chip – was first sold by Belgian immigrant Edward De Gernier in the city’s Greenmarket."^[19]

United States' world-wide influence

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French fry production at a restaurant with thermostatic temperature control.

Although the thicker cut British style of fried potato was already a popular dish in most Commonwealth countries, the thin style of french fries has been popularized worldwide in part by U.S.-based fast food chains like McDonald's and Burger King.

In the 2000s

Pre-made french fries have been available for home cooking since the 1970s, usually having been pre-fried (or sometimes baked), frozen and placed in a sealed plastic bag.

Later varieties of french fries include those which have been battered and breaded, and many U.S. fast food and casual-food chains have turned to dusting with kashi, dextrin, and flavors coating for crispier fries with particular tastes. Results with batterings and breadings, followed by microwaving, have not achieved widespread critical acceptance. Oven frying delivers a dish different from the traditionally fried item.^[20]

Variants

Sweet potato fries served with a restaurant meal in Harvard Square.

French fries have numerous variants, such as "thick-cut fries", "shoestring fries", "jojo fries", "crinkle fries", and "curly fries". They can also be coated with breading and spices, which include garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, paprika, and salt to create "seasoned fries", or cut thickly with the skin left on to create potato wedges, or without the skin to create "steak fries", essentially the American equivalent of the British "chip". Sometimes, french fries are cooked in the oven as a final step in the preparation (having been coated with oil during preparation at the factory): these are often sold frozen and are called "oven fries" or "oven chips".

In France, the thick-cut fries are called "pommes Pont-Neuf"^[21] or simply "pommes frites", about 10 mm; thinner variants are "pommes allumettes" (matchstick potatoes), ±7 mm, and "pommes pailles" (potato straws), 3-4 mm (roughly ⅜, ¼ and ⅛ inch respectively). The two-bath technique is standard (Bocuse). "Pommes gaufrettes" or "waffle fries" are not typical french fried potatoes, but actually crisps obtained by quarter turning the potato before each next slide over a grater and deep-frying just once.^[22]

Jean Ceustermans, a Belgian chef patented "steppegras" ("prairie grass"), his variety of extremely thin-cut French fried potatoes developed in 1968 while working in Germany. The name refers to a dish including its particular sauce, and to his restaurant.^[23]

In Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and elsewhere, the term "French fries" was made popular by American fast food franchises setting up restaurants and serving narrow-cut (shoestring) fries. Traditional "chips" in the United Kingdom and Ireland are usually cut much thicker, typically between ⅜ and ½ inches (9.5-13 mm) square in cross-section and cooked twice, making them less crunchy on the outside and fluffier on the inside. Since the surface-to-volume ratio is lower, they have a lower fat content. Chips are part of the popular take-away dish fish and chips. In Australia, the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand, few towns are without a chip shop (colloquially, a chippie/chippy/chipper).

In an interview, Burger King president Donald Smith said that his chain's fries are sprayed with a sugar solution shortly before being packaged and shipped to individual outlets. The sugar caramelizes in the cooking fat, producing the golden color customers expect. Without it, the fries would be nearly the same color outside as inside: pasty yellow. Smith believes that McDonald's also sugar-coats its fries. McDonalds was assumed to fry their fries for a total time of about 15 to 20 minutes, and with fries fried at least twice. The fries appear to contain beef lard, or shortening.^[24]

Curly fries (unseasoned variety)

Curly fries

Curly fries are a kind of french fry characterized by their unique spring-like shape. They are generally made from whole potatoes that are cut using a specialised spiral slicer. They are also typically characterized by the presence of additional seasonings (which give the fries a more orange appearance when compared to the more yellow appearance of standard fries), although this is not always the case.

Sometimes they are packaged for preparation at home, often in frozen packs. In the US they can also be found at a number of restaurants and fast food outlets like Arby's, where they are most often served with cups of dipping cheese; although other condiments, such as ketchup, fry sauce, or sweet chili sauce and sour cream, may be served with curly fries.

Accompaniments

Main article: list of accompaniments with french fries

Chili cheese fries

French fries are almost always salted just after cooking. They are then served with a variety of condiments, notably ketchup, curry, curry ketchup (mildly hot mix of the former), hot or chili sauce, mustard, mayonnaise, bearnaise sauce, tartar sauce, tzatziki, feta cheese, garlic sauce, fry sauce, ranch dressing, barbecue sauce, gravy, aioli, brown sauce, vinegar (especially malt vinegar), lemon, piccalilli, pickled cucumber, gherkins, very small pickled onions, poutine (especially Quebec, Canada), or honey.^[25]^[26]

Fish and chips.

Besides being a popular snack in themselves, french fried potatoes as a side dish to specific food or an integral part of a named dish often typify a country:

In Belgium, steamed mussels: mosselen-friet (Dutch) or moules-frites (French), a popular summer dish when the mussels arrive, typically from Zeeland. Also biefstuk-friet or bifteck-frites (which may be served with beef or horse steak), with plainly seasoned fries or served with a Belgian sauce, and usually a simple salad. A quick and inexpensive traditional meal is a deep fried egg on top of a plate of chips. A notorious Belgian tradition is putting mayonnaise on fries, although a typical frietkot will offer dozens of other sauces. Some claim the typical American ketchup/fries pairing is a variation of mayo/fries.
In Algeria, grilled Merguez: Frites-merguez.
In the Netherlands, kroket and frikandel are the most accompaniments.
In France, grilled steak: steak-frites.
In Hungary, Wiener Schnitzel or other roasted meat served with green salad, as a regular Sunday meal.
In Spain, fried eggs: huevos fritos con patatas.
In the United Kingdom, chips are a popular staple. "Chip shops" (or "chippies") commonly serve several dishes with chips such as cod ("fish and chips") and battered sausage (sausage supper). British cafes, on the other hand, serve more traditional fare, such as fried eggs (double egg and chips). Sometimes served with a British full breakfast.
In the United States, hamburgers: Burger and fries, and chili and melted American cheese: Chili cheese fries.
In Australia and New Zealand chips are often accompanied by aioli in restaurants and cafes.
In Canada, gravy and cheese curds: poutine.
In Germany, sausage with curry-flavored ketchup: Currywurst.
In Norway, Finland, and Sweden, kebab, hamburgers, and sausages.
In Portugal, chips are served along with dry rice (arroz seco), a usual combination, that is not the complete dish, that can include grilled chicken (Piri-Piri chicken), espetada, omelette or eggs, beef (prego no prato), and several other dishes and lettuce.
In South Africa,"slap chips" are served with a peri-peri or sweet chilli sauce with different strengths of hotness.
In the Middle East, chips are served in pita bread with breaded chicken or falafel, along with cucumber and tomato, and condiments such as hummus, tahini, or tzatziki.
In Chile, chips are served with fried eggs, fried onions, and a steak in a national dish called "Bistec a lo Pobre" (Poor Man's Steak)

Preparation

When freshly made, french fried potatoes are best cooked at least twice. Soaking the cut potatoes in ice water helps remove some of the excess starch from the surface. The potatoes should be par-cooked at a lower temperature (320°F/160°C) for 6–8 minutes until limp and the color changes from white to blond. (Thick-cut "steak fries" or "chips" should be cooked 10–12 minutes.) This ensures that the center of the potato stick is cooked all the way through; skipping this step results in fries that are either undercooked in the middle or overcooked on the outside. The potatoes should be allowed to cool and dry for at least 10 minutes. Meanwhile, the oil should be reheated to a higher temperature (365°F/185°C). The rested potatoes should be cooked until golden, slightly puffy, and crisp, 1–2 minutes.^[27]

Health aspects

Fries cooking in oil.

French fries can contain a large amount of fat (usually saturated) or oils from frying. Some researchers have suggested that the high temperatures used for frying such dishes may have results harmful to health (see acrylamides). In the United States about ¼ of vegetables consumed are prepared as french fries and are proposed to contribute to widespread obesity. Frying french fries in beef tallow adds saturated fat to the diet. Replacing tallow with tropical oils such as palm oil simply substitutes one saturated fat for another. Replacing tallow with partially hydrogenated oil reduces cholesterol but adds trans fat, which has been shown to both raise LDL cholesterol and lower HDL cholesterol. Canola oil could also be used, but beef lard is generally more popular, especially amongst fast food outlets that use communal oil baths. The picture on the right shows French Fries being cooked on a gas stove for fast oil temperature re-gain and better heat control.^[28]^[29]^[30] Many restaurants now advertise their use of unsaturated oils. Five Guys, for example, advertises their fries are prepared in peanut oil.

Legal issues

In 1994, the well-known owner of Stringfellows nightclub in London, Peter Stringfellow, took exception to McCain Foods' use of the name "Stringfellows" for a brand of long thin french fries and took them to court. He lost the case (Stringfellows v McCain Food (GB) Ltd (1994)) on the basis that there was no connection in the public mind between the two uses of the name, and therefore McCain's product would not have caused the nightclub to lose any sales.^[31]^[32]

In New Zealand in 1995 some branches of the local fast food chain Georgie Pie took to calling their French fries "Kiwi Fries", in opposition to the French resumption of nuclear testing in the South Pacific.

In early 2003 some members of the U.S. congress proposed calling french fries freedom fries in response to France's opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq. By 2006 the menu at the House restaurant had reverted to calling them french fries.^[33]

In June 2004, the United States Department of Agriculture, with the advisement of a federal district judge from Beaumont, Texas, classified batter-coated french fries as a vegetable under the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act. Although this move was mostly for trade reasons (french fries do not meet the standard to be listed as a "processed food"), this received significant media attention partially due to the documentary Super Size Me.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: French fries

Wikibooks Cookbook has a recipe/module on

French Fries

Bocuse, Paul. La Cuisine du marché, Paris, 1992.
Tebben, Maryann. "“French” Fries: France’s Culinary Identity from Brillat-Savarin to Barthes (essay)". online journal Convivium Artium: Food Representation in Literature, Film, and the Arts ©2006. Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, University of Texas at San Antonio. http://flan.utsa.edu/conviviumartium/Tebben.html. Retrieved on 7 December 2006.

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Potato

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Role in world food supply

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French Fries

French fries

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

Etymology

Culinary origin

Belgium

France

Spain

Spreading popularity

United Kingdom

United States' world-wide influence

In the 2000s

Variants

Curly fries

Accompaniments

Preparation

Health aspects

Legal issues

References