Cheesecloth
Cheesecloth is a loose-woven gauze-like carded cotton cloth used in cheese making and cooking. Cheesecloth is available in at least seven different grades, from open to extra-fine weave. Grades are distinguished by the number of threads per inch in each direction; the primary use of cheesecloth is in some styles of cheesemaking, where it is used to remove whey from cheese curds, to help hold the curds together as the cheese is formed. Cheesecloth is used in straining stocks and custards, bundling herbs, making tofu and ghee, thickening yogurt. Queso blanco and queso fresco are Spanish and Mexican cheeses that are made from whole milk using cheesecloth. Quark is a type of German unsalted cheese, sometimes formed with cheesecloth. Paneer is a kind of Indian fresh cheese, made with cheesecloth. Fruitcake is wrapped in rum-infused cheesecloth during the process of "feeding" the fruitcake as it ripens. Cheesecloth can be used for several printmaking processes including lithography for wiping up gum arabic.
In intaglio a starched cheesecloth called tarlatan is used for wiping away excess ink from the printing surface. Cheesecloth # 60 is used in regulatory testing for potential fire hazards. Cheesecloth is wrapped over the device under test, subjected to simulated conditions such as lightning surges conducted through power or telecom cables, power faults, etc; the device must not ignite the cheesecloth. This is to ensure that the device can fail safely, not start electrical fires in the vicinity. Cheesecloth made to United States Federal Standard CCC-C-440 is used to test the durability of optical coatings per United States Military Standard MIL-C-48497; the optics are exposed to a 95%-100% humidity environment at 120 °F for 24 hours, a 1⁄4 inch thick by 3⁄8 in wide pad of cheesecloth is rubbed over the optical surface for at least 50 strokes under at least 1 pound-force. The optical surface is examined for streaks or scratches, its optical performance is measured to ensure that no deterioration occurred.
Cheesecloth is used in Pakistan for making summer shirts. Cheesecloth material shirts were popular for beachwear during the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. Cheesecloth has been used to create the illusion of "ectoplasm" during spirit channelling or other ghost-related phenomena. Cheesecloth has a use in anatomical dissection laboratories to slow the process of desiccation; the cloth can be soaked with a preservative solution such as formalin wrapped around the specimen or at other times wrapped first sprayed with water. Muslin Pudding cloth
Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus Cinnamomum. Cinnamon is used as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines and savoury dishes, breakfast cereals, snackfoods and traditional foods; the aroma and flavour of cinnamon derive from its essential oil and principal component, cinnamaldehyde, as well as numerous other constituents, including eugenol. The term "cinnamon" is used to describe its mid-brown colour. Cinnamon is the name for several species of trees and the commercial spice products that some of them produce. All are members of the genus Cinnamomum in the family Lauraceae. Only a few Cinnamomum species are grown commercially for spice. Cinnamomum verum is sometimes considered to be "true cinnamon", but most cinnamon in international commerce is derived from related species referred to as "cassia". In 2016, Indonesia and China produced 75% of the world's supply of cinnamon; the English word "cinnamon", attested in English since the fifteenth century, derives from the Greek κιννάμωμον kinnámōmon, via Latin and medieval French intermediate forms.
The Greek was borrowed from a Phoenician word, similar to the related Hebrew קינמון. The name "cassia", first recorded in late Old English from Latin, derives from Hebrew q'tsīʿāh, a form of the verb qātsaʿ, "to strip off bark". Early Modern English used the names canel and canella, similar to the current names of cinnamon in several other European languages, which are derived from the Latin word cannella, a diminutive of canna, "tube", from the way the bark curls up as it dries. Cinnamon has been known from remote antiquity, it was imported to Egypt as early as 2000 BC, but those who reported that it had come from China had confused it with cinnamon cassia, a related species. Cinnamon was so prized among ancient nations that it was regarded as a gift fit for monarchs and for a deity, its source was kept mysterious in the Mediterranean world for centuries by those in the spice trade to protect their monopoly as suppliers. Cinnamomum verum, which translates as'true cinnamon', is native to India, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.
Cinnamomum cassia is native to China. Related species, all harvested and sold in the modern era as cinnamon, are native to Vietnam and other southeast Asian countries with warm climates; the first Greek reference to kasia is found in a poem by Sappho in the seventh century BC. According to Herodotus, both cinnamon and cassia grew in Arabia, together with incense and labdanum, were guarded by winged serpents. In Ancient Egypt, cinnamon was used to embalm mummies. From Hellenistic times onward, Ancient Egyptian recipes for kyphi, an aromatic used for burning, included cinnamon and cassia; the gifts of Hellenistic rulers to temples sometimes included cinnamon. Cinnamon was brought around the Arabian peninsula on "rafts without rudders or sails or oars", taking advantage of the winter trade winds. Pliny the Elder mentions cassia as a flavouring agent for wine. According to Pliny the Elder, a Roman pound of cassia, cinnamon, or serichatum cost up to 1500 denarii, the wage of fifty months' labour. Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices from 301 AD gives a price of 125 denarii for a pound of cassia, while an agricultural labourer earned 25 denarii per day.
Cinnamon was too expensive to be used on funeral pyres in Rome, but the Emperor Nero is said to have burned a year's worth of the city's supply at the funeral for his wife Poppaea Sabina in AD 65. Through the Middle Ages, the source of cinnamon remained a mystery to the Western world. From reading Latin writers who quoted Herodotus, Europeans had learned that cinnamon came up the Red Sea to the trading ports of Egypt, but where it came from was less than clear; when the Sieur de Joinville accompanied his king to Egypt on crusade in 1248, he reported – and believed – what he had been told: that cinnamon was fished up in nets at the source of the Nile out at the edge of the world. Marco Polo avoided precision on the topic. Herodotus and other authors named Arabia as the source of cinnamon: they recounted that giant "cinnamon birds" collected the cinnamon sticks from an unknown land where the cinnamon trees grew and used them to construct their nests, that the Arabs employed a trick to obtain the sticks.
Pliny the Elder wrote in the first century that traders had made this up to charge more, but the story remained current in Byzantium as late as 1310. The first mention that the spice grew in Sri Lanka was in Zakariya al-Qazwini's Athar al-bilad wa-akhbar al-‘ibad about 1270; this was followed shortly thereafter by John of Montecorvino in a letter of about 1292. Indonesian rafts transported cinnamon directly from the Moluccas to East Africa, where local traders carried it north to Alexandria in Egypt. Venetian traders from Italy held a monopoly on the spice trade in Europe, distributing cinnamon from Alexandria; the disruption of this trade by the rise of other Mediterranean powers, such as the Mamluk sultans and the Ottoman Empire, was one of many factors that led Europeans to search more for other routes to Asia. During the 1500s, Ferdinand Magellan was searching for spices on behalf of Spain, in the Philippines found Cinnamomum mindanaense, related to C. zeylanicum, the cinnamon found in Sri Lanka.
This cinnamon competed with Sri Lankan cinnamon, controlled by the Portuguese. In 1638, Dutch traders established a trading post in Sri Lanka, took control of the manufactories
Canella
Canella is a monospecific genus containing the species Canella winterana, a tree native to the Caribbean from the Florida Keys to Barbados. Its bark is used as a spice similar to cinnamon, giving rise to the common names "cinnamon bark", "wild cinnamon", "white cinnamon"; the wood of Canella is heavy and exceedingly hard and close-grained, with numerous thin, inconspicuous medullary rays. The specific gravity of the dry wood grown in Florida is 0.9893. Canella attains in Florida a height of 25 to 30 feet, with a straight trunk eight to 10 inches in diameter. On the mountains of Jamaica, it is said to grow sometimes to the height of 50 feet; the principal branches are slender and spreading, forming a compact round-headed top. The light gray bark of the trunk is an eighth of an inch thick, the surface is broken into many short thick scales more than 2-3 in long, about twice the thickness of the pale yellow, aromatic inner bark; the leaves are obovate, round or emarginate at the apex, contracted into a short, grooved petiole.
The flowers open in the autumn, the fruit ripens in March and April, when it is bright crimson and fleshy, is eaten by many birds. Canella, the diminutive of the Latin canna, a cane or reed, was first applied to the bark of the Old World tree cassia, Cinnamomum aromaticum, from the form of a roll or quill which it assumed in drying, was transferred to the West Indian tree; the genus Canella was erected in 1756 by Patrick Browne. The species epithet winterana is an artifact from a period when this plant was confused with Winter's bark, Drimys winteri, itself named for William Winter. Canella is distributed, not uncommon on the Florida Keys, where it was first discovered by J. L. Blodgett, it grows under the shade of larger trees in dense forests composed of Sideroxylon, Swietenia, Hypelate and Nectandra. Canella was one of the first American trees to attract the attention of Europeans, it is mentioned in the accounts of many of the early voyages to America: We found there a tree whose leaf had the finest smell of cloves that I have met with.
The white bark, the brilliant deep green foliage, crimson fruit make the Canella one of the most ornamental of the smaller south Florida trees. It was introduced into England in 1738, was first cultivated in Europe by Philip Miller. Canella At: Plant Names At: IPNI Canella In: The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica At: Patrick Browne At: Authors At: Botanicus
Guatemala
Guatemala the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west and the Caribbean to the northeast, Honduras to the east, El Salvador to the southeast and the Pacific Ocean to the south. With an estimated population of around 16.6 million, it is the most populated country in Central America. Guatemala is a representative democracy; the territory of modern Guatemala once formed the core of the Maya civilization, which extended across Mesoamerica. Most of the country was conquered by the Spanish in the 16th century, becoming part of the viceroyalty of New Spain. Guatemala attained independence in 1821 as part of the Federal Republic of Central America, which dissolved by 1841. From the mid to late 19th century, Guatemala experienced civil strife. Beginning in the early 20th century, it was ruled by a series of dictators backed by the United Fruit Company and the United States government. In 1944, authoritarian leader Jorge Ubico was overthrown by a pro-democratic military coup, initiating a decade-long revolution that led to sweeping social and economic reforms.
A U. S.-backed military coup in 1954 installed a dictatorship. From 1960 to 1996, Guatemala endured a bloody civil war fought between the US-backed government and leftist rebels, including genocidal massacres of the Maya population perpetrated by the military. Since a United Nations-negotiated peace accord, Guatemala has witnessed both economic growth and successful democratic elections, though it continues to struggle with high rates of poverty, drug trade, instability; as of 2014, Guatemala ranks 31st of 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries in terms of the Human Development Index. Guatemala's abundance of biologically significant and unique ecosystems includes a large number of endemic species and contributes to Mesoamerica's designation as a biodiversity hotspot; the name "Guatemala" comes from the Nahuatl word Cuauhtēmallān, or "place of many trees", a derivative of the K'iche' Mayan word for "many trees" or more for the Cuate/Cuatli tree Eysenhardtia. This was the name the Tlaxcaltecan soldiers who accompanied Pedro de Alvarado during the Spanish Conquest gave to this territory.
The first evidence of human habitation in Guatemala dates back to 12,000 BC. Evidence, such as obsidian arrowheads found in various parts of the country, suggests a human presence as early as 18,000 BC. There is archaeological proof. Pollen samples from Petén and the Pacific coast indicate that maize cultivation had developed by 3500 BC. Sites dating back to 6500 BC have been found in the Quiché region in the Highlands, Sipacate and Escuintla on the central Pacific coast. Archaeologists divide the pre-Columbian history of Mesoamerica into the Preclassic period, the Classic period, the Postclassic period; until the Preclassic was regarded as a formative period, with small villages of farmers who lived in huts, few permanent buildings. However, this notion has been challenged by recent discoveries of monumental architecture from that period, such as an altar in La Blanca, San Marcos, from 1000 BC; the Classic period of Mesoamerican civilization corresponds to the height of the Maya civilization, is represented by countless sites throughout Guatemala, although the largest concentration is in Petén.
This period is characterized by urbanisation, the emergence of independent city-states, contact with other Mesoamerican cultures. This lasted until 900 AD, when the Classic Maya civilization collapsed; the Maya abandoned many of the cities of the central lowlands or were killed off by a drought-induced famine. The cause of the collapse is debated, but the drought theory is gaining currency, supported by evidence such as lakebeds, ancient pollen, others. A series of prolonged droughts, among other reasons such as overpopulation, in what is otherwise a seasonal desert is thought to have decimated the Maya, who relied on regular rainfall; the Post-Classic period is represented by regional kingdoms, such as the Itza, Kowoj and Kejache in Petén, the Mam, Ki'che', Chajoma, Tz'utujil, Poqomchi', Q'eqchi' and Ch'orti' in the highlands. Their cities preserved many aspects of Maya culture; the Maya civilization shares many features with other Mesoamerican civilizations due to the high degree of interaction and cultural diffusion that characterized the region.
Advances such as writing and the calendar did not originate with the Maya. Maya influence can be detected from Honduras, Northern El Salvador to as far north as central Mexico, more than 1,000 km from the Maya area. Many outside influences are found in Maya art and architecture, which are thought to be the result of trade and cultural exchange rather than direct external conquest. After they arrived in the New World, the Spanish started several expeditions to Guatemala, beginning in 1519. Before long, Spanish contact resulted in an epidemic. Hernán Cortés, who had led the Spanish conquest of Mexico, granted a permit to Captains Gonzalo de Alvarado and his brother, Pedro de Alvarado, to conquer this land. Alvarado at first allied himself with the Kaqchikel nation to fight against their traditional rivals the K'iche' nation
Hibiscus tea
Hibiscus tea is a herbal tea made as an infusion from crimson or deep magenta-colored calyces of the roselle flower. It is consumed both cold, it has a cranberry-like flavor. The drink is sometimes called rosella, it is known as zobo or bissap in west African countries like Nigeria. Agua de flor de Jamaica called agua de Jamaica and rosa de Jamaica, is popular in Mexico, Central America, parts of South America and the Caribbean, it is one of several common aguas frescas, which are inexpensive beverages made from fresh juices or extracts. It is prepared by steeping the calyces, along with ginger, in boiling water, straining the mixture, pressing the calyces, adding sugar, sometimes clove, cinnamon and a little rum, stirring, it is served chilled, in Jamaica this drink is a tradition at Christmas, served with fruit cake or potato pudding. In Panama, both the flowers and the drink are called saril, it is prepared by picking and boiling the calyces with chopped ginger, clove and nutmeg. It is traditionally drunk around Christmas and Chinese New Year, diverging from Mexico and Central America and much more in line with the Caribbean, due to the strong West Indian influence in Panamanian culture in Panama City and most of Panama's Caribbean coast.
In the English-speaking Caribbean, the drink, called sorrel, is made from the calyces, it is considered an integral part of Christmas celebrations. The Caribbean Development Company, a Trinidad and Tobago brewery, produces a Sorrel Shandy in which the tea is combined with beer. In American soul-food culture, hibiscus tea is included in a category of "red drinks" associated with West Africa, is served in soul-food restaurants and at African-American social events. Karkadé is chilled with ice, it is consumed in some parts of North Africa in Egypt and Sudan. In Egypt and Sudan, wedding celebrations are traditionally toasted with a glass of hibiscus tea. On a typical street in central Cairo, many vendors and open-air cafés sell the drink. In Africa the Sahel, hibiscus tea is sold on the street and the dried flowers can be found in every market. Variations on the drink are popular in parts of Central Africa. In Senegal, bissap is known as the "national drink of Senegal". Hibiscus tea is flavored with mint or ginger in West Africa.
In Ghana it is known as "sobolo". In Thailand, most roselle is prepared as a cold beverage sweetened and poured over ice, similar to sweetened fruit juices. Plastic bags filled with ice and sweetened'grajeab' can be found outside of most schools and in local markets, it is less made into a wine, sometimes combined with Chinese tea leaves, in the ratio of 4:1 by weight. The beverage is consumed in Indonesia as well. In Italy, hibiscus tea, known as carcadè or Italian tea, is drunk hot with the addition of sugar and lemon juice. First introduced from Eritrea, it was used as a tea substitute when the country was hit by trade sanctions for its invasion of Abyssinia. In other European countries, it is as an ingredient in mixed herbal teas, as such, more used than recognized. A 2013 review found low-quality evidence that hypertensive or diabetic people who consumed hibiscus tea daily had slight decreases in blood pressure. Hibiscus tea was well-tolerated, did not adversely affect liver or kidney function at lower doses, but may be hepatotoxic at high doses.
Information about Roselle by J. Morton, part of the New Crop Resource Online Program at Purdue University
Rice milk
Rice milk is a grain milk made from rice. It is made from brown rice and unsweetened; the sweetness in most rice milk varieties is generated by a natural enzymatic process that cleaves the carbohydrates into sugars glucose, similar to the Japanese amazake. Some rice milks may be sweetened with sugarcane syrup or other sugars. Compared to cow's milk, rice milk contains more carbohydrates, but does not contain significant amounts of calcium or protein, no cholesterol or lactose. Commercial brands of rice milk are fortified with vitamins and minerals, including calcium, vitamin B12, vitamin B3, iron, it has a glycemic index of 86 ± 7 compared to 39 ± 3 for whole milk. Rice milk is consumed by people who are lactose intolerant, allergic to soy or milk, or have PKU, it is used as a dairy substitute by vegans. Commercial brands of rice milk are available in vanilla and almond flavors, as well as the original unflavored form, can be used in many recipes as an alternative to traditional cow milk. Rice milk is made by pressing the rice through a mill using diffusion to strain out the pressed grains.
It is sometimes made at home using rice flour and brown rice protein, or by boiling brown rice with a large volume of water and straining the mixture. List of rice beverages Dairy-Free Diets at Curlie Multiple rice milk and horchata recipes D I Y Rice Milk
Cyperus esculentus
Cyperus esculentus is a crop of the sedge family widespread across much of the world. It is found in most of the Eastern Hemisphere, including Southern Europe and Madagascar, as well as the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. Cyperus esculentus can be found wild, as a crop. Evidence exists for its cultivation in Egypt since the sixth millennium BC, for several centuries in Southern Europe. In Spain, C. esculentus is cultivated for its edible tubers, called earth almonds or tiger nuts, for the preparation of horchata de chufa, a sweet, milk-like beverage. However, in most other countries, C. esculentus is considered a weed. It is found in wet soils such as rice paddies and peanut farms as well as well irrigated lawns and golf courses during warm weather. Prehistoric tools with traces of C. esculentus tuber starch granules have been recovered from the early Archaic period in North America, from about 9,000 years ago, at the Sandy Hill excavation site at the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation in Mashantucket, Connecticut.
The tubers are believed to have been a source of food for those Paleo-Indians. Zohary and Hopf estimate that C. esculentus "ranks among the oldest cultivated plants in Ancient Egypt". Although noting that "chufa was no doubt an important food element in ancient Egypt during dynastic times, its cultivation in ancient times seems to have remained an Egyptian specialty", its dry tubers have been found in tombs from predynastic times about 6000 years ago. In those times, C. esculentus tubers were consumed either boiled in beer, roasted, or as sweets made of ground tubers with honey. The tubers were used medicinally, taken orally, as an ointment, or as an enema, used in fumigants to sweeten the smell of homes or clothing. There are no contemporary records of this plant in other parts of the old World. Besides Egypt, at present C. esculentus is cultivated in Spain, where it is extended for common commercial purposes in mild climate areas. The plant was introduced by the Arabs, first in the Valencia region.
They were grown by the Paiute in Owens Valley. C. esculentus is cultivated in countries such as Guatemala, Chile, the United States, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Ivory Coast, South Sudan, Guinea Bissau, Niger, Burkina Faso, Benin, Northern Cameroon, Mali, where they are used as animal feed or uncooked as a side dish, but in Hispanic countries they are used to make horchata, a sweet, milk-like beverage. In Northern Nigeria, it is called aya and it is eaten fresh, it is sometimes dried and rehydrated and eaten. A snack is made by toasting the nuts and sugar coating it is popular among the Hausa children of Northern Nigeria. A drink known as kunun aya is made by processing the nuts with dates and sieved and served chilled, it has been suggested that the extinct hominin Paranthropus boisei, the Nutcracker Man, subsisted on tiger nuts. Cyperus esculentus is an annual or perennial plant, growing to 90 cm tall, with solitary stems growing from a tuber; the plant is reproduced by seeds, creeping rhizomes, tubers.
Due to its clonal nature, C. esculentus can take advantage of soil disturbances caused by anthropogenic or natural forces. The stems are triangular in section and bear slender leaves 3–10 mm wide; the spikelets of the plant are distinctive, with a cluster of flat, oval seeds surrounded by four hanging, leaf-like bracts positioned 90 degrees from each other. They are 5 to 30 mm long and linear to narrowly elliptic with 8 to 35 florets; the color varies from straw-colored to gold-brown. They can produce up to 2420 seeds per plant; the plant foliage is tough and fibrous and is mistaken for a grass. The roots are an extensive and complex system of fine, fibrous roots and scaly rhizomes with small, spherical tubers and basal bulbs attached; the tubers are 0.3 – 1.9 cm in diameter and the colors vary between yellow and black. One plant can produce several hundred to several thousand tubers during a single growing season. With cool temperatures, the foliage, roots and basal bulbs die, but the tubers survive and resprout the following spring when soil temperatures remain above 6 °C.
They can resprout up to several years later. When the tubers germinate, many rhizomes are initiated and end in a basal bulb near the soil surface; these basal bulbs initiate the stems and leaves above ground, fibrous roots underground. C. esculentus requires cross pollination as it is self -- incompatible. Cyperus esculentus. Low temperature and light intensity can inhibit flowering. Tuber initiation is inhibited by high levels of nitrogen, long photoperiods, high levels of gibberellic acid. Flower initiation occurs under photoperiods of 12 to 14 hours per day. Tubers can develop in soil depths around 30 cm, they tolerate many adverse soil conditions including periods of drought and flooding and survive soil temperatures around −5 °C. They grow best on sandy, moist soils at a pH between 5.0 – 7.5. The densest populations of C. esculentus are found in low-lying wetlands. They do not tolerate salinity. Planting is done on flat soils where ridges to favour the coming irrigations have been done; the separation between ridges is 60 cm and seeds are planted
listen)), or orxata (Valencian: [oɾˈʃata]), is a name given to various plant milk beverages of similar taste and appearance.
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