Hamburger

The hamburger most likely first appeared in the19th or early 20thcenturies.The modern hamburger was a product of the culinary needs of a society that was rapidly changing due to industrialization,and therefore,people had less time to prepare as well as to consume meals.

Americans contend that they were the first to combine two slices of bread and a steak of ground beef into a"hamburger sandwich".Part of the controversy over the origin of the hamburger is because the two basic ingredients,bread and beef,were prepared and consumed separately for many years before their combination.Shortly after its creation,the hamburger was prepared with all of the now typically characteristic trimmings,including onions,lettuce,and sliced pickles.

The term hamburger or burger can also be applied to the meat patty on its own,especially in theUK where the term"patty"is rarely used,although the term"hamburger"is rarely used in theCommonwealth countries unless referring to a menu item of anAmerican restaurant.

The term hamburger originally derives from Hamburg,Germany'ssecond largest city,from where many emigrated to America.In High German,Burg means fortified settlement or fortified refuge;and is a widespread component of placenames.Hamburger can be a descriptive noun in German,referring to someone from Hamburg or an adjective describing something from Hamburg.Similarly,frankfurter and wiener,names for other meat-based foods,are also used in German as descriptive nouns for people and as adjectives for things from the cities of Frankfurt and Wien(Vienna),respectively.The term"burger"is associated with many different types of sandwiches similar to a hamburger,using different meats,such as a buffalo burger,turkey burger,elk burger,salmon burger,or even a veggie burger.

During the20th century,there were various controversies,including a nutritional controversy in the late1990s.The burger is now readily identified with the UnitedStates,and a particular style of cuisine,namely fast food. Along with fried chicken and apple pie, the hamburger has become a culinary icon in the United States.

The hamburger'sinternational popularity demonstrates the larger globalization of food that has also been witnessed in the rise in the global popularity of other national dishes,including theTurkish döner kebab,the Italian pizza,and Japanese sushi.The hamburger has spread from continent to continent perhaps because,in part, it is easy to understand in different culinary cultures.This global culinary culture has been produced,in part,by the concept of selling processed food.This idea was first imagined in the1920s by the White Castle restaurant chain and its visionary EdgarWaldo"Billy"Ingram,and was perfected by McDonald's and Ray Kroc in the1940s.This global expansion has provided comparative economics such as the Big Mac Index,which allows for the comparison of the purchasing power of different countries where the Big Mac hamburger is sold.

How to Turn Corn Tortilla into Homemade Tortilla Chips

Restaurant and store-bought tortilla chips can not compare to fresh and more crunchy homemade tortilla chips. Tortilla chips are fast and easy to produce and you can use them in any recipe calls for tortilla chips. Fry or bake up some and enjoy it plain, with salsa and dips, or in a batch of nachos.

  What you need:

• 1 quart. oil for frying
• 1 (12 ounce) package corn tortillas
• Salt to taste
• a large pot
• skimmer
• Cutting Board
• Knife
• Bowl

Directions:

1. Cut tortillas into wedges or strips.
2. Line a bowl with paper towels (to absorb excess oil).
3. Heat oil in large saucepan to about 375 degrees.
4. Fall of the tortillas in oil in small quantities. Brown.
5. Remove chips from the oil in a slotted spoon. Transfer to a bowl to cool.
6. Sprinkle with salt while still hot.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 with the remaining tortillas

The Coconut, Cocos nucifera

Coconut is produced from coconut tree that grow abundantly in the tropics, especially along the beachlines or the seafront. A lot of processed foods and products made from coconuts we can find and enjoy. From the meat to the water of coconut can be used as a culinary product.

Coconut palm, Cocos nucifera, is a member of the family Arecaceae (palm family). Coconut is the only species accepted on the genus Cocos. The term "Coconut" may refer to the whole coconut palm, seeds, fruits or nuts that are not a "botanical nuts". Cocoanut spelling is an old form of the word.

Coconut palm can be found in many parts of the tropics, the coconut is known for its versatility as evidenced by the many domestic, commercial and industrial of its parts.

Coconuts are part of daily diet for many people. Its endosperm is known as edible "meat" of coconut, and when it is called dried copra.

The oil and milk of coconut are commonly used in baking and frying, coconut oil is also widely used in soaps and cosmetics. The clear liquid Coconut water is a refreshing drink and can be processed to produce alcohol.

The Shells, and leaves of coconut can be used as material to produce different products for decorating and furnishing. It 'also a cultural and religious significance in many societies that use it.

Bananas: Miracle Food!

Got an interesting email from my sister-in-law today about bananas. Seems they really are super healthy. Glad I eat one almost everyday…

BANANAS – Some Interesting Facts

Never put your banana in the refrigerator!!! This is interesting. After reading this, you’ll never look at a banana in the same way again.

Bananas contain three natural sugars – sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fiber.

A banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy. Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world’s leading athletes.

But energy isn’t the only way a banana can help us keep fit. It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions, making it a must to add to our daily diet.

Depression: According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier.

PMS: Forget the pills – eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.

Anemia: High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.

Blood Pressure: This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it perfect to beat blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit’s ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.

Brain Power: 200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex) school were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at breakfast, break, and lunch in a bid to boost their brain power. Research has shown that the potassium-packed fruit can assist learning by making pupils more alert.

Constipation: High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without resorting to laxatives.

Hangovers: One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.

Heartburn: Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body, so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.

Morning Sickness: Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.

Mosquito bites: Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.

Nerves: Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system.

Overweight and at work? Studies at the Institute of Psychology in Austria found pressure at work leads to gorging on comfort food like chocolate and chips. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to be in high-pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid panic-induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours to keep levels steady.

Ulcers: The banana is used as the dietary food against intestinal disorders because of its soft texture and smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without distress in over-chronicler cases. It also neutralizes over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of the stomach.

Temperature control: Many other cultures see bananas as a “cooling” fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of expectant mothers. In

 Thailand, for example, pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): Bananas can help SAD sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer tryptophan.

Smoking &Tobacco Use: Bananas can also help people trying to give up smoking. The B6, B12 they contain, as well as the potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.

Stress: Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body’s water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.

Strokes: According to research in The New England Journal of Medicine, eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the risk of death by strokes by as much as 40%!

Warts: Those keen on natural alternatives swear that if you want to kill off a wart, take a piece of banana skin and place it on the wart, with the yellow side out. Carefully hold the skin in place with a plaster or surgical tape!

So, a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrates, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods around. So maybe its time to change that well-known phrase so that we say, “A banana a day keeps the doctor away!”

Jelly

Jelly is a soft and semi-solid foods substance with a strong consistency, made by fixing a liquid containing pectin or gelatin or by the addition of gelatin to a liquid, mostly as a substance made from pectin containing fruit juice boiled with sugar.

Jelly is a transparent or translucent fruit spread of sweet fruit (or vegetable) juice and play with natural pectin. Pectin can be added, that the fruit does not provide enough original example with grapes. jelly ingredients can be prepared with sweet, salty or hot. It is manufactured by a process similar to that used for making jam, with the additional step of filtering the pulp of the fruit after the initial heating. Gauze or jersey "jelly bag" is traditionally used as a filter, suspended by a rope over a bowl to allow the force to occur slowly by gravity. It is important not to force the process to force, for example, pressing the fruit mass in muslin or jelly resulting clarity will be compromised.

"Good jelly is clear and bright and has a refreshing taste of fruit,from whichit ismade. And 'race moved enough to shake, but when you cut corners.

Pectin isbest extracted fromthe fruit byheat, then cook thefruit until soft before separating to get the juice, ... Pour the cooked fruit in to jelly bag,which hasbeen wrung out from cold water. Hang up and allow to drain. When the dripping has stopped, the bag can be squeezed to remove the remaining juice, but this can cause cloudy jelly. "

the Clear jam madefrom strained fruit juice hasbeen affected by boiling with sugar. It is also used in this sense, in North America, to mean any jam.

Table JELLY is a sweet dessert made from gelatin, sweetened and flavored; known in North America as Jell-O, patented in New York City, by PeterCooper (1842) as a coloured fruit-flavored gelatin powder FORdessert , Jell-O was marketed for the first time by Pearl B. Wait of LeRoy, NY, NY, in1897.

Noodle

Noodle is a type of food, which formed into long narrow, ribbonlike strip, curly-cues, waves, helices, pipes, tubes, strings, or other various shapes, sometimes folded, of dried dough, usually made of flour, eggs, and water. Noodle is a type of pasta made with flour and water, sometimes with added egg, the flour being made from various grains such as rice, wheat, buckwheat, and mung bean starch. Made into a wide range of shapes and sizes. Noodles are usually cooked in a mixture of boiling water and/or oil. Depending upon the type, noodles may be dried or refrigerated before cooking. The word derives from the German Nudel (noodle).

The main Difference betweenNoodles and macaroni or spaghetti is that, in addition to flour and water, noodles contain eggs or eggYolks. Noodlescan be cut into flat, thick or thin strips of various lengths, as well as into squares. Awide variety ofNoodles is available in markets, including those enriched with vitamins and minerals, and colored noodles (red tinted with tomato paste or beet juice and green with spinach). Noodles are sold fresh (these should be refrigerated for no more than 3 days) and dried (best stored in a cool, dry place for no more than 6 months).

Archaeologists found a pot containing the world's oldest known NOODLES in 2002, dating back 4000 years to the archaeological site of Qijia Lajia culture along the Yellow River in China. The noodles were well preserved. After an investigation with the parties of the paste is in 2004, scientists determined the noodles were made from millet and foxtail millet. The results were published in October 2005 by Houyuan Lu et al. in the journal Nature. The first written record of noodles is from a book dating from the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220). Noodles, often made of wheat dough, food has become a major base of the Han dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD).

Banana fruit nutrition facts

Go for banana fruit, nature's own energy rich food that comes in a safety envelope! Fresh, delicious bananas are available year around and are very cheap. Botanically, the fruit belongs to the family of Musaceae. Commercially, it is one of the widely cultivated crops in the tropical and subtropical zones.

Scientific name: Musa acuminata colla.

 

Banana is a perennial herbaceous plant that develops from underground rhizome. It flourishes well under tropical moisture-rich, humid low-lying farmlands. The whole plant is a false stem (pseudostem) consisting of broad leaves and their petioles overlapping around each other in a circular fashion standing up to 2 to 6 meters tall from the ground surface depending upon the cultivar types. At maturity, the rhizome gives rise to flower (inflorescence) that is carried up on a long smooth un-branched stem through the centre of the pseudo-stem emerging out at the top in the centre of the leaf cluster. The flower subsequently develops to hanging bunch consisting of 3 to 20 hands (tiers), each with at least 5-10 fingers (fruits) in each hand (tier). Banana plant or plantain bears hanging clusters of fruits as bunch. Fruits are arranged in tiers, with 6-20 fruits in each tier.

There are several cultivars of banana grown with different size (4”-9”inch), color (yellow to brown), weight (70-150g) and taste. Structurally, fruit has a protective outer skin and delicious, sweet and tart, creamy white color edible flesh inside.

 Plantains are other cultivars types, more often used as cooking bananas. They are closely related to the familiar fruit banana or dessert banana. Plantains are used as a staple diet in Thailand, Laos, and other Southeast Asian as well as in many parts of tropical African and Caribbean regions.

   

Health benefits of banana fruit

• Banana fruit is rich in calories, but very low in fats. The fruit contains good amounts of health benefiting anti-oxidants, minerals, and vitamins.
• Banana pulp is composed of soft, easily digestible flesh with simple sugars like fructose and sucrose that when eaten replenishes energy and revitalizes the body instantly; thus, for these qualities, bananas are being used by athletes to get instant energy and as supplement food in the treatment plan for underweight children.
• The fruit contains good amount of soluble dietary fiber (7% of DRA per 100 g) that helps normal bowel movements; thereby reducing constipation problems.
• It contains many health promoting flavonoid poly-phenolic antioxidants such as lutein, zeaxanthin, beta and alpha carotenes in small amounts. These compounds help act as protective scavengers against oxygen-derived free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS) that play a role in aging and various disease processes.
• It is also a very good source of vitamin-B6 (pyridoxine), provides about 28% of daily-recommended allowance. Pyridoxine is an important B-complex vitamin that has beneficial role in the treatment of neuritis, anemia, and decreasing homocystine (one of the causative factor for coronary artery disease (CHD) and stroke episodes) levels in the body.
• The fruit is also good source of vitamin-C (about 8.7 mg per 100g). Consumption of foods rich in vitamin-C helps body develop resistance against infectious agents and scavenge harmful oxygen free radicals.
• Fresh bananas provide adequate levels of minerals like copper, magnesium, and manganese. Magnesium is essential for bone strengthening and has cardiac-protective role as well.  Manganese is used by the body as a co-factor for the antioxidant enzyme, superoxide dismutase. Copper is required in the production of red blood cells.
• Fresh banana is a very rich source of potassium. 100 g fruit provides 358 mg potassium. Potassium is an important component of cell and body fluids that helps control heart rate and blood pressure, countering bad effects of sodium.

Selection and storage

Once ripened, bananas are very fragile and start decaying in short time. In the field, bananas are usually harvested while they are green as it is easy to transport when the fruits are raw and firm.

 In order to ripen, they are usually subjected to ethylene or kept in close proximity with other ripened fruits. In the stores, choose banana fruits based on when you want to use them; greener ones last for more days, while yellow and brown-spotted bananas should be eaten in a few days.

Ready to eat bananas should be quite firm, bright yellow in color and emanate rich fragrance, and the skin should be peeled off easily. Ripened, fresh bananas are nutritionally enriched and sweeter in taste.

Avoid mushy or damaged bananas, as they are un-appealing.

Preparation and Serving methods

• Bananas comes with nature gifted protective outer layer of skin, therefore are less likely contaminated by germs and dust.
• Just remove the peel and enjoy!
• Banana fruit sections are a great addition to the fruit salads.
• Fresh "banana-milkshake" with sugar syrup is a delicious drink.
• Bananas have also been used in the making of fruit jams.
• Banana fritters can be served with ice cream as well.
• Banana chips are a snack produced from dehydrated or fried banana or plantain slices.
• Mash ripe banana fruits and add to cakes, casseroles, muffins, bread pudding etc.
• Plantain is raw unripe banana that is used as vegetable in recipes.

 Safety profile

Banana fruits are sometimes known to cause skin and systemic allergic reactions. In "oral allergy syndrome" which causes itching and swelling in the mouth or throat within hours after ingestion and is related to birch tree and other pollen allergies.

The other type of reaction is related to latex allergies and causes urticaria and potentially serious gastrointestinal symptoms like nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.