Cheesecake
Cheesecake is a sweet dessert consisting of one or more layers. The main, thickest layer, consists of a mixture of soft, fresh cheese and sugar. If there is a bottom layer, it consists of a crust or base made from crushed cookies, graham crackers, pastry, or sometimes sponge cake, it may be unbaked. Cheesecake is sweetened with sugar and may be flavored in many different ways, it may be flavored by adding vanilla, lemon, pumpkin, or other flavors to the cheese layer. Additional flavors and visual appeal may be added by topping the finished pie with fruit, whipped cream, cookies, fruit sauce, chocolate syrup, or other toppings. An ancient form of cheesecake may have been a popular dish in ancient Greece prior to Romans' adoption of it with the conquest of Greece; the earliest attested mention of a cheesecake is by the Greek physician Aegimus, who wrote a book on the art of making cheesecakes. The earliest extant cheesecake recipes are found in Cato the Elder's De Agri Cultura, which includes recipes for three cakes for religious uses: libum and placenta.
Of the three, placenta is most like most modern cheesecakes, having a crust, separately prepared and baked. A more modern version is found in Forme of Cury, an English cookbook from 1390. On this basis, chef Heston Blumenthal has argued; the English name cheesecake has been used only since the 15th century, but the cheesecake did not evolve into its modern form until somewhere around the 18th century. Europeans began adding beaten eggs to the cheesecake instead. With the overpowering yeast flavor gone, the result tasted more like a dessert treat. Modern commercial American cream cheese was developed in 1872, when William Lawrence, from Chester, New York, while looking for a way to recreate the soft, French cheese Neufchâtel, accidentally came up with a way of making an "unripened cheese", heavier and creamier. Modern cheesecake comes in two different types. Along with the baked cheesecake, some cheesecakes are made with uncooked cream-cheese on a crumbled-biscuit base; this type of cheesecake was invented in the United States.
Modern cheesecake is not classified as a cake, despite the name. People who classify it as a torte point to the presence of many eggs, which are the sole source of leavening, as a key factor. For others, the overall structure, with the separate crust, the soft filling, the absence of flour, is compelling evidence that it is a custard pie. Other sources identify it as tart. Cheesecakes can be broadly categorized into two basic types: unbaked; each comes in a variety of styles determined by region: South Africa South Africa has many different varieties of cheesecake. One popular variant is made with whipped cream, cream cheese, gelatine for the filling, a buttered digestive biscuit crust, it is not baked, is sometimes made with Amarula liqueur. This variant is similar to British cheesecake; this cheesecake is more common in British South African communities. Asian-style cheesecake flavors include matcha and mango. Asian-style cheesecakes are lighter in flavor and are sometimes light and spongy in texture.
Compared to its counterparts, Asian cheesecake is considerably less sweet. Japan Japanese-style cheesecake relies upon the emulsification of cornstarch and eggs to make a smooth flan-like texture and plasticine appearance. India The Indian state of Odisha is known for chhena poda, a type of cheesecake made by baking a mixture of chhena - a type of cottage cheese and nuts. Australian cheesecakes are more unbaked. Common flavors include passionfruit, raspberry, lemon and vanilla. Bulgaria Bulgarian-style cheesecake uses cream cheese in a New York–style filling and smetana for a top layer. Ground nuts are added to the crust mixture. France French-style cheesecakes are light, feature gelatin as a binding ingredient, are only 3 to 5 cm high; this variety gets its light flavor from Neufchâtel cheese. Germany German-style cheesecake uses quark and a freshly made dough, not Graham crackers; the Käsesahnetorte is not baked. This recipe is sometimes translated into English using rennet-based cottage cheese, but a German Quarkkuchen uses quark cheese made from sour milk.
Greece In Greece the cheese cake has been made since antiquity and is now traditionally made using mizithra. There are many regional variants of the mizithropita. Italy Ancient Roman-style cheesecake uses honey and a ricotta-like cheese along with flour and is traditionally shaped into loaves; some recipes call for bay leaves. Italian-style cheesecake uses ricotta or mascarpone cheese, vanilla extract, sometimes barley flakes; this type of cheesecake is drier than American styles. Small bits of candied fruit are added; the Netherlands and Belgium Dutch/Belgian-style cheesecakes are flavored with fruit or melted bittersweet chocolate, are made with quark, are not baked. Belgian cheesecake includes a speculaas crust. Poland Polish sernik, one of the most popular desserts in Poland, is made using twaróg, Polish quark cheese. Portugal The Portuguese confectionery Queijada is related to cheesecake, although smaller in size
Rye
Rye is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe and is related to barley and wheat. Rye grain is used for flour, beer, crisp bread, some whiskeys, some vodkas, animal fodder, it can be eaten whole, either as boiled rye berries or by being rolled, similar to rolled oats. Rye is a cereal grain and should not be confused with ryegrass, used for lawns and hay for livestock. Rye is one of a number of species that grow wild in central and eastern Turkey and in adjacent areas. Domesticated rye occurs in small quantities at a number of Neolithic sites in Turkey, such as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Can Hasan III near Çatalhöyük, but is otherwise absent from the archaeological record until the Bronze Age of central Europe, c. 1800–1500 BCE. It is possible that rye traveled west from Turkey as a minor admixture in wheat, was only cultivated in its own right. Although archeological evidence of this grain has been found in Roman contexts along the Rhine, in Ireland and Britain, Pliny the Elder was dismissive of rye, writing that it "is a poor food and only serves to avert starvation" and spelt is mixed into it "to mitigate its bitter taste, then is most unpleasant to the stomach".
Since the Middle Ages people have cultivated rye in Central and Eastern Europe. It serves as the main bread cereal in most areas east of the French-German border and north of Hungary. In Southern Europe, it was cultivated on marginal lands. Claims of much earlier cultivation of rye, at the Epipalaeolithic site of Tell Abu Hureyra in the Euphrates valley of northern Syria remain controversial. Critics point to inconsistencies in the radiocarbon dates, identifications based on grain, rather than on chaff. Winter rye is any breed of rye planted in the fall to provide ground cover for the winter, it grows during warmer days of the winter when sunlight temporarily warms the plant above freezing while there is general snow cover. It can be used to prevent the growth of winter-hardy weeds, can either be harvested as a bonus crop or tilled directly into the ground in spring to provide more organic matter for the next summer's crop, it is a common nurse crop. The nematode Ditylenchus dipsaci, leaf beetle, fruit fly, gout fly, cereal chafer, dart moth, cereal bug, Hessian fly, rustic shoulder knot are among insects which can affect rye health.
Rye is grown in Eastern and Northern Europe. The main rye belt stretches from northern Germany through Poland, Belarus and Latvia into central and northern Russia. Rye is grown in North America, in South America, in Oceania, in Turkey, in Kazakhstan and in northern China. Production levels of rye have fallen in most of the producing nations, as of 2012. For instance, production of rye in Russia fell from 13.9 million metric tons in 1992 to 2.1 t in 2012. Corresponding figures for other countries are as follows: Poland – falling from 5.9 t in 1992 to 2.9 t in 2005. Most rye is consumed locally or exported only to neighboring countries, rather than being shipped worldwide. World trade of rye is low compared with other grains such as wheat; the total export of rye for 2016 was $186M compared with $30.1B for wheat. Poland consumes the most rye per person at 32.4 kg/capita. Nordic and Baltic countries are very high; the EU in general is around 5.6 kg/capita. The entire world only consumes 0.9 kg/capita.
Rye is susceptible to the ergot fungus. Consumption of ergot-infected rye by humans and animals results in a serious medical condition known as ergotism. Ergotism can cause both physical and mental harm, including convulsions, necrosis of digits and death. Damp northern countries that have depended on rye as a staple crop were subject to periodic epidemics of this condition; such epidemics have been found to correlate with periods of frequent witch trials, such as the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts in 1692. Modern grain-cleaning and milling methods have eliminated the disease, but contaminated flour may end up in bread and other food products if the ergot is not removed before milling. Rye grain is refined into a flour. Rye flour is low in glutenin, it therefore has a lower gluten content than wheat flour. It contains a higher proportion of soluble fiber. Alkylresorcinols are phenolic lipids present in high amounts in the bran layer of rye. Rye bread, including pumpernickel, is made using rye flour and is a eaten food in Northern and Eastern Europe.
Rye is used to make crisp bread. Rye grain is used to make like rye whiskey and rye beer. Other uses of rye grain include an herbal medicine known as rye extract. Rye straw is used as livestock bedding, as a cover crop and green manure for soil amendment, to make crafts such as corn dollies. Physical properties of rye affect attributes of the final food product such as seed size and surface area, porosity; the surface area of the seed directly correlates to the heat transfer time. Smaller seeds have increased heat transfer. Seeds with lower amounts of porosity have lower tendencies to lose water during the process of drying. Rye grows well in much poorer soils than those necessary for most cereal grains. Thus, it is an especially
Wheat
Wheat is a grass cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain, a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus Triticum; the archaeological record suggests that wheat was first cultivated in the regions of the Fertile Crescent around 9600 BCE. Botanically, the wheat kernel is a type of fruit called a caryopsis. Wheat is grown on more land area than any other food crop. World trade in wheat is greater than for all other crops combined. In 2016, world production of wheat was 749 million tonnes, making it the second most-produced cereal after maize. Since 1960, world production of wheat and other grain crops has tripled and is expected to grow further through the middle of the 21st century. Global demand for wheat is increasing due to the unique viscoelastic and adhesive properties of gluten proteins, which facilitate the production of processed foods, whose consumption is increasing as a result of the worldwide industrialization process and the westernization of the diet.
Wheat is an important source of carbohydrates. Globally, it is the leading source of vegetal protein in human food, having a protein content of about 13%, high compared to other major cereals but low in protein quality for supplying essential amino acids; when eaten as the whole grain, wheat is a source of dietary fiber. In a small part of the general population, gluten – the major part of wheat protein – can trigger coeliac disease, noncoeliac gluten sensitivity, gluten ataxia, dermatitis herpetiformis. Cultivation and repeated harvesting and sowing of the grains of wild grasses led to the creation of domestic strains, as mutant forms of wheat were preferentially chosen by farmers. In domesticated wheat, grains are larger, the seeds remain attached to the ear by a toughened rachis during harvesting. In wild strains, a more fragile rachis allows the ear to shatter and disperse the spikelets. Selection for these traits by farmers might not have been deliberately intended, but have occurred because these traits made gathering the seeds easier.
As the traits that improve wheat as a food source involve the loss of the plant's natural seed dispersal mechanisms domesticated strains of wheat cannot survive in the wild. Cultivation of wheat began to spread beyond the Fertile Crescent after about 8000 BCE. Jared Diamond traces the spread of cultivated emmer wheat starting in the Fertile Crescent sometime before 8800 BCE. Archaeological analysis of wild emmer indicates that it was first cultivated in the southern Levant, with finds dating back as far as 9600 BCE. Genetic analysis of wild einkorn wheat suggests that it was first grown in the Karacadag Mountains in southeastern Turkey. Dated archeological remains of einkorn wheat in settlement sites near this region, including those at Abu Hureyra in Syria, suggest the domestication of einkorn near the Karacadag Mountain Range. With the anomalous exception of two grains from Iraq ed-Dubb, the earliest carbon-14 date for einkorn wheat remains at Abu Hureyra is 7800 to 7500 years BCE. Remains of harvested emmer from several sites near the Karacadag Range have been dated to between 8600 and 8400 BCE, that is, in the Neolithic period.
With the exception of Iraq ed-Dubb, the earliest carbon-14 dated remains of domesticated emmer wheat were found in the earliest levels of Tell Aswad, in the Damascus basin, near Mount Hermon in Syria. These remains were dated by Willem van Zeist and his assistant Johanna Bakker-Heeres to 8800 BCE, they concluded that the settlers of Tell Aswad did not develop this form of emmer themselves, but brought the domesticated grains with them from an as yet unidentified location elsewhere. The cultivation of emmer reached Greece and Indian subcontinent by 6500 BCE, Egypt shortly after 6000 BCE, Germany and Spain by 5000 BCE. "The early Egyptians were developers of bread and the use of the oven and developed baking into one of the first large-scale food production industries." By 3000 BCE, wheat had reached Scandinavia. A millennium it reached China; the oldest evidence for hexaploid wheat has been confirmed through DNA analysis of wheat seeds, dating to around 6400-6200 BCE, recovered from Çatalhöyük.
The first identifiable bread wheat with sufficient gluten for yeasted breads has been identified using DNA analysis in samples from a granary dating to 1350 BCE at Assiros in Macedonia. From Asia, wheat continued to spread across Europe. In the British Isles, wheat straw was used for roofing in the Bronze Age, was in common use until the late 19th century. Technological advances in soil preparation and seed placement at planting time, use of crop rotation and fertilizers to improve plant growth, advances in harvesting methods have all combined to promote wheat as a viable crop; when the use of seed drills replaced broadcasting sowing of seed in the 18th century, another great increase in productivity occurred. Yields of pure wheat per unit area increased as methods of crop rotation were applied to long cultivated land, the use of fertilizers became widespread. Improved agricultural husbandry has more included threshing machines and reaping machines, tractor-drawn cultivators and planters, better varieties.
Great expansion of wheat production occurred as new arable land was farmed in the Americas and Australia in the 19th and 20th centuries. Leaves emerge from the shoot apical meristem in a telescoping fashion until the transition to reprod
Bread
Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour and water by baking. Throughout recorded history it has been a prominent food in large parts of the world and is one of the oldest man-made foods, having been of significant importance since the dawn of agriculture. Bread may be leavened by processes such as reliance on occurring sourdough microbes, industrially produced yeast, or high-pressure aeration. Commercial bread contains additives to improve flavor, color, shelf life and ease of manufacturing. Bread plays essential roles in secular culture; the Old English word for bread was hlaf. Old High German hleib and modern German Laib derive from this Proto-Germanic word, borrowed into Slavic and Finnic languages as well; the Middle and Modern English word bread appears in Germanic languages, such as West Frisian brea, Dutch brood, German Brot, Swedish bröd, Norwegian and Danish brød. Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods. Evidence from 30,000 years ago in Europe revealed starch residue on rocks used for pounding plants.
It is possible that during this time, starch extract from the roots of plants, such as cattails and ferns, was spread on a flat rock, placed over a fire and cooked into a primitive form of flatbread. The world's oldest evidence of bread-making has been found in a 14,500 year old Natufian site in Jordan's northeastern desert. Around 10,000 BC, with the dawn of the Neolithic age and the spread of agriculture, grains became the mainstay of making bread. Yeast spores are ubiquitous, including on the surface of cereal grains, so any dough left to rest leavens naturally. There were multiple sources of leavening available for early bread. Airborne yeasts could be harnessed by leaving uncooked dough exposed to air for some time before cooking. Pliny the Elder reported that the Gauls and Iberians used the foam skimmed from beer called barm to produce "a lighter kind of bread than other peoples" such as barm cake. Parts of the ancient world that drank wine instead of beer used a paste composed of grape juice and flour, allowed to begin fermenting, or wheat bran steeped in wine, as a source for yeast.
The most common source of leavening was to retain a piece of dough from the previous day to use as a form of sourdough starter, as Pliny reported. The Chorleywood bread process was developed in 1961; the process, whose high-energy mixing allows for the use of lower protein grain, is now used around the world in large factories. As a result, bread can be produced quickly and at low costs to the manufacturer and the consumer. However, there has been some criticism of the effect on nutritional value. Bread is the staple food of the Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa, in European-derived cultures such as those in the Americas and Southern Africa, in contrast to parts of South and East Asia where rice or noodle is the staple. Bread is made from a wheat-flour dough, cultured with yeast, allowed to rise, baked in an oven; the addition of yeast to the bread explains the air pockets found in bread. Owing to its high levels of gluten, common or bread wheat is the most common grain used for the preparation of bread, which makes the largest single contribution to the world's food supply of any food.
Bread is made from the flour of other wheat species. Non-wheat cereals including rye, maize, sorghum and rice have been used to make bread, with the exception of rye in combination with wheat flour as they have less gluten. Gluten-free breads have been created for people affected by gluten-related disorders such as coeliac disease and non-coeliac gluten sensitivity, who may benefit from a gluten-free diet. Gluten-free bread is made with ground flours from a variety of materials such as almonds, sorghum, corn, or legumes such as beans, tubers such as cassava, but since these flours lack gluten they may not hold their shape as they rise and their crumb may be dense with little aeration. Additives such as xanthan gum, guar gum, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, corn starch, or eggs are used to compensate for the lack of gluten. In wheat, phenolic compounds are found in hulls in the form of insoluble bound ferulic acid, where it is relevant to wheat resistance to fungal diseases. Rye bread contains ferulic acid dehydrodimers.
Three natural phenolic glucosides, secoisolariciresinol diglucoside, p-coumaric acid glucoside and ferulic acid glucoside, can be found in commercial breads containing flaxseed. Glutenin and gliadin are functional proteins found in wheat bread that contribute to the structure of bread. Glutenin forms interconnected gluten networks within bread through interchain disulfide bonds. Gliadin binds weakly to the gluten network established by glutenin via intrachain disulfide bonds. Structurally, bread can be defined as an elastic-plastic foam; the glutenin protein contributes to its elastic nature, as it is able to regain its initial shape after deformation. The gliadin protein contributes to its plastic nature, because it demonstrates non-reversible structural change after a certain amount of applied force; because air pockets within this gluten network result from carbon dioxide production during leavening, bread can be defined as a foam, or a
Dessert
Dessert is a course that concludes an evening meal. The course consists of sweet foods, such as confections dishes or fruit, a beverage such as dessert wine or liqueur, however in the United States it may include coffee, nuts, or other savory items regarded as a separate course elsewhere. In some parts of the world, such as much of central and western Africa, most parts of China, there is no tradition of a dessert course to conclude a meal; the term dessert can apply to many confections, such as biscuits, cookies, gelatins, ice creams, pies and sweet soups, tarts. Fruit is commonly found in dessert courses because of its occurring sweetness; some cultures sweeten foods that are more savory to create desserts. The word "dessert" originated from the French word desservir, meaning "to clear the table." Its first known use was in 1600, in a health education manual entitled Naturall and artificial Directions for Health, written by William Vaughan. In his A History of Dessert, Michael Krondl explains it refers to the fact dessert was served after the table had been cleared of other dishes.
The term dates from the 14th century but attained its current meaning around the beginning of the 20th century when "service à la française" was replaced with "service à la russe"" The word "dessert" is most used for this course in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the United States, while "pudding", "sweet", or more colloquially, "afters" are used in the United Kingdom and some other Commonwealth countries, including Hong Kong and India. Sweets were fed to the gods in ancient Mesopotamia and ancient India and other ancient civilizations. Dried fruit and honey were the first sweeteners used in most of the world, but the spread of sugarcane around the world was essential to the development of dessert. Sugarcane was grown and refined in India before 500 BC and was crystallized, making it easy to transport, by 500 AD. Sugar and sugarcane were traded, making sugar available to Macedonia by 300 BC and China by 600 AD. In the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, China, sugar has been a staple of cooking and desserts for over a thousand years.
Sugarcane and sugar were little known and rare in Europe until the twelfth century or when the Crusades and colonization spread its use. Herodotus mentions that, as opposed to the Greeks, the main Persian meal was simple, but they would eat many desserts afterwards. Europeans began to manufacture sugar in the Middle Ages, more sweet desserts became available. Sugar was so expensive only the wealthy could indulge on special occasions; the first apple pie recipe was published in 1381. The earliest documentation of the term cupcake was in "Seventy-five Receipts for Pastry and Sweetmeats" in 1828 in Eliza Leslie's Receipts cookbook; the Industrial Revolution in Europe and America caused desserts to be mass-produced, preserved and packaged. Frozen foods, including desserts, became popular starting in the 1920s when freezing emerged; these processed foods became a large part of diets in many industrialized nations. Many countries have foods distinctive to their nations or region. Sweet desserts contain cane sugar, palm sugar, honey or some types of syrup such as molasses, maple syrup, treacle, or corn syrup.
Other common ingredients in Western-style desserts are flour or other starches, Cooking fats such as butter or lard, eggs, acidic ingredients such as lemon juice, spices and other flavoring agents such as chocolate, peanut butter and nuts. The proportions of these ingredients, along with the preparation methods, play a major part in the consistency and flavor of the end product. Sugars contribute tenderness to baked goods. Flour or starch components gives the dessert structure. Fats can enable the development of flaky layers in pastries and pie crusts; the dairy products in baked goods keep the desserts moist. Many desserts contain eggs, in order to form custard or to aid in the rising and thickening of a cake-like substance. Egg yolks contribute to the richness of desserts. Egg whites can provide structure. Further innovation in the healthy eating movement has led to more information being available about vegan and gluten-free substitutes for the standard ingredients, as well as replacements for refined sugar.
Desserts can contain many extracts to add a variety of flavors. Salt and acids are added to desserts to create a contrast in flavors; some desserts are coffee-flavored, for coffee biscuits. Alcohol can be used as an ingredient, to make alcoholic desserts. Dessert consist of variations of flavors and appearances. Desserts can be defined as a sweeter course that concludes a meal; this definition includes a range of courses ranging from fruits or dried nuts to multi-ingredient cakes and pies. Many cultures have different variations of dessert. In modern times the variations of desserts have been passed down or come from geographical regions; this is one cause for the variation of desserts. These are some major categories. Biscuits, (from the Old French word bescuit meaning twice-baked in Latin known as "cookies" in North America, are flattish bite-sized or larger short pastries intended to be eaten out of the hand. Biscuits can have a texture, crispy, chewy, or soft. Examples include layered bars, crispy
Flour
Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, beans, |nuts or seeds. It is used to make many different foods. Cereal flour is the main ingredient of bread, a staple food for most cultures. Wheat flour is one of the most important ingredients in Oceanic, South American, North American, Middle Eastern, North Indian and North African cultures, is the defining ingredient in their styles of breads and pastries. Wheat is the most common base for flour. Corn flour has been important in Mesoamerican cuisine since ancient times and remains a staple in the Americas. Rye flour is a constituent of bread in central Europe. Cereal flour consists either of the endosperm and bran together or of the endosperm alone. Meal is either differentiable from flour as having coarser particle size or is synonymous with flour. For example, the word cornmeal connotes a grittier texture whereas corn flour connotes fine powder, although there is no codified dividing line; the English word "flour" is a variant of the word "flower" and both words derive from the Old French fleur or flour, which had the literal meaning "blossom", a figurative meaning "the finest".
The phrase "fleur de farine" meant "the finest part of the meal", since flour resulted from the elimination of coarse and unwanted matter from the grain during milling. The earliest archaeological evidence for wheat seeds crushed between simple millstones to make flour dates to 6000 BC; the Romans were the first to grind seeds on cone mills. In 1879, at the beginning of the Industrial Era, the first steam mill was erected in London. In the 1930s, some flour began to be enriched with iron, niacin and riboflavin. In the 1940s, mills started to enrich flour and folic acid was added to the list in the 1990s. An important problem of the industrial revolution was the preservation of flour. Transportation distances and a slow distribution system collided with natural shelf life; the reason for the limited shelf life is the fatty acids of the germ, which react from the moment they are exposed to oxygen. This occurs. Depending on climate and grain quality, this process takes six to nine months. In the late 19th century, this process was too short for an industrial production and distribution cycle.
As vitamins and amino acids were or unknown in the late 19th century, removing the germ was an effective solution. Without the germ, flour cannot become rancid. Degermed flour became standard. Degermation started in densely populated areas and took one generation to reach the countryside. Heat-processed flour is flour where the germ is first separated from the endosperm and bran processed with steam, dry heat or microwave and blended into flour again; the FDA has been advised by several cookie dough manufacturers that they have implemented the use of heat-treated flour for their "ready-to-bake cookie dough" products to reduce the risk of E. coli bacterial contamination. Milling of flour is accomplished by grinding grain between stones or steel wheels. Today, "stone-ground" means that the grain has been ground in a mill in which a revolving stone wheel turns over a stationary stone wheel, vertically or horizontally with the grain in between. Roller mills soon replaced stone grist mills as the production of flour has driven technological development, as attempts to make gristmills more productive and less labor-intensive led to the watermill and windmill.
These terms are now applied more broadly to uses of water and wind power for purposes other than milling. More the Unifine mill, an impact-type mill, was developed in the mid-20th century. Home users have begun grinding their own flour from organic wheat berries on a variety of electric flour mills; the grinding process is not much different from grinding coffee but the mills are larger. This provides fresh flour with the benefits of wheat fiber without spoilage. Modern farm equipment allows livestock farmers to do some or all of their own milling when it comes time to convert their own grain crops to coarse meal for livestock feed; this capability is economically important because the profit margins are thin enough in commercial farming that saving expenses is vital to staying in business. Flour contains a high proportion of starches, which are a subset of complex carbohydrates known as polysaccharides; the kinds of flour used in cooking include all-purpose flour, self-rising flour, cake flour including bleached flour.
The higher the protein content the harder and stronger the flour, the more it will produce crusty or chewy breads. The lower the protein the softer the flour, better for cakes and pie crusts. "Bleached flour" is any refined flour with a whitening agent added. "Refined flour" has had the germ and bran removed and is referred to as "white flour". Bleached flour is artificially aged using a maturing agent, or both. A bleaching agent would affect only the carotenoids in the flour. A maturing agent may either weaken gluten development; the four most common additives used as bleaching/maturing agents in the US are: Potassium bromate, listed as an ingredient, is a maturing agent that strengthens gluten development. It does not bleach. Benzoyl peroxide does not act as a maturing agent, it has no effect on gluten. Ascorbic acid is listed as an ingredient, either as an indication that the flour was matured using ascorbic acid or that a small amount is
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Three centuries after the Late Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and colonization of the Mediterranean Basin; this was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedon, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the western end of the Mediterranean Sea; the Hellenistic period came to an end with the conquests and annexations of the eastern Mediterranean world by the Roman Republic, which established the Roman province of Macedonia in Roman Greece, the province of Achaea during the Roman Empire. Classical Greek culture philosophy, had a powerful influence on ancient Rome, which carried a version of it to many parts of the Mediterranean Basin and Europe.
For this reason, Classical Greece is considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. Classical Greek culture gave great importance to knowledge. Science and religion were not separate and getting closer to the truth meant getting closer to the gods. In this context, they understood the importance of mathematics as an instrument for obtaining more reliable knowledge. Greek culture, in a few centuries and with a limited population, managed to explore and make progress in many fields of science, mathematics and knowledge in general. Classical antiquity in the Mediterranean region is considered to have begun in the 8th century BC and ended in the 6th century AD. Classical antiquity in Greece was preceded by the Greek Dark Ages, archaeologically characterised by the protogeometric and geometric styles of designs on pottery. Following the Dark Ages was the Archaic Period, beginning around the 8th century BC.
The Archaic Period saw early developments in Greek culture and society which formed the basis for the Classical Period. After the Archaic Period, the Classical Period in Greece is conventionally considered to have lasted from the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 until the death of Alexander the Great in 323; the period is characterized by a style, considered by observers to be exemplary, i.e. "classical", as shown in the Parthenon, for instance. Politically, the Classical Period was dominated by Athens and the Delian League during the 5th century, but displaced by Spartan hegemony during the early 4th century BC, before power shifted to Thebes and the Boeotian League and to the League of Corinth led by Macedon; this period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon. Following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period, during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East; this period ends with the Roman conquest. Roman Greece is considered to be the period between Roman victory over the Corinthians at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC and the establishment of Byzantium by Constantine as the capital of the Roman Empire in AD 330.
Late Antiquity refers to the period of Christianization during the 4th to early 6th centuries AD, sometimes taken to be complete with the closure of the Academy of Athens by Justinian I in 529. The historical period of ancient Greece is unique in world history as the first period attested directly in proper historiography, while earlier ancient history or proto-history is known by much more circumstantial evidence, such as annals or king lists, pragmatic epigraphy. Herodotus is known as the "father of history": his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Written between the 450s and 420s BC, Herodotus' work reaches about a century into the past, discussing 6th century historical figures such as Darius I of Persia, Cambyses II and Psamtik III, alluding to some 8th century ones such as Candaules. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Demosthenes and Aristotle. Most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities.
Their scope is further limited by a focus on political and diplomatic history, ignoring economic and social history. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization. Literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. Objects with Phoenician writing on them may have been available in Greece from the 9th century BC, but the earliest evidence of Greek writing comes from graffiti on Greek pottery from the mid-8th century. Greece was divided into many small self-governing communities, a pattern dictated by Greek geography: every island and plain is cut off from its neighbors by the sea or mountain ranges; the Lelantine War is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period. It was fought between the important poleis of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, though Chalcis was the nominal victor.
A mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC. This
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