Popcorn, Industry Sector FOOD II (staple)

Cornmeal is a granular flour ground from dried kernels of yellow or white corn. It has a sweet, robust flavour. Commercial cornmeal is available in fine or coarse grinds. Stone-ground cornmeal, made from whole kernels, produces richer flour.

Steel ground yellow cornmeal, common in the United States, has the husk and germ of the maize kernel almost completely removed. It is conserved almost indefinitely if stored in an airtight container in a cool dry place.

Stone ground cornmeal retains some of the hull and germ, lending a little more flavour and nutrition to recipes. It is more perishable, but will store longer if refrigerated.

White cornmeal (mealie meal) is more traditional in Africa. It is also popular in the Southern United States for making cornbread.

Native Americans roasted their corn and ground it into meal to make cakes, breads, and porridges. The new cereal was precious and helped the early settlers to survive those first harsh years. Before long uniquely American dishes were being developed on the basis of this new grain, including an Indian bread called pone' or corn pone’ made of cornmeal, salt and water. This was later called corn bread' and has been a staple of American cooking to this day.

Once the corn was ground to meal, the question was what to do with it. For wheat eaters, corn was a punishment. In frontier America, as in colonial America, any form of bread made with corn instead of wheat was a sad paste of despair. How sad is reflected in the lowliness of the names-pone, ashcakes, hoe-cakes, journey-cakes, Johnny-cakes, slapjacks, spoon breads, dodgers, all improvised in the scramble to translate one culture's tongue and palate into another's.

CORN MILLING – THE GRIST MILL

Grist is grain, and by 1840 the United States had over 23,000 grist mills.  Most were neighbourhood grist mills, selling the service of grinding to nearby farmers. The customer paid a toll, or fraction of the grain he brought to the mill, in exchange for having his corn ground into meal. The toll was normally 1/16th of the grain.

To operate the mill, (powered by water) the miller places the corn to be ground in the funnel-like hopper above his pair of millstones, after first taking out his toll. Then he opens the sluice gate that lets water into his water wheel. As the weight of falling water turns the water wheel, large gears turning smaller gears make the shaft turn faster, much as the large gear on the peddles of a bicycle will turn the smaller gear on the wheel more rapidly. This power is transmitted to a vertical spindle, upon which rests a large, flat disc of stone, often weighing a ton or more.

This stone spins just above, but not quite touching, an identical stone set stationary in the floor of the mill. Both stones have a pattern of grooves cut into their faces. As one stone turns above the other, their grooves cross much like scissor blades. Grain falling through the hole, or "eye", in the runner stone is cut apart as it passes between the two stones. The miller can adjust the distance between the stones to regulate how finely the grain is ground. The milled grains move around the cover that is over the stones, until it falls through a hole into the meal chest. From there it can be scooped up into a sack to be taken home for baking.

Whole ground or stone-ground mills most often use white corn to make food products such as hominy grits and corn meal. These products are essentially whole ground corn with very little of the hull and germ removed.

CORN MILLING – THE MODERN STEEL ROLLER SYSTEM

The most common modern milling process is "tempering-degerming." The first step in this process is to dry clean the corn, separating fines and broken from the whole corn.  The clean corn is tempered to 20 percent moisture. While moist, the majority of the outer bran or pericarp, germ, and tip cap are removed, leaving the endosperm. The bulk of the corn endosperm, known as the "tail hominy fraction," proceeds through the degerminator, is dried, cooled, and sifted. A portion of this "fraction" is isolated as large flaking grits. Further separation is accomplished using roller mills, sifters, grinding tables, and aspirators so that an infinite variety of smaller grits, meals and flours can be produced

The corn milling industry produces a wide variety of yellow and white corn products.  The main product categories include degermed corn grits, corn meal, corn flour, and corn bran. They are used in a variety of foods, including breakfast cereals, snack foods, baked goods, beer and pet foods. On a smaller level, dry milled products are also used in non-food items. The by-products derived from the milling process are corn oil, used in salad dressings, margarines and syrups, and hominy, used primarily as a source of starch and fibre in animal feed.

Those who take particular interest in the foods they eat argue that steel roller mills heat up and this can destroy some of the natural ingredients such as vitamins.

HOME MILLING

Home milling can open a world of delicious, healthful, corn-based foods to anybody who wants the health benefits of a diet rich in whole grains.

The milling chamber has two stainless steel wheels with concentric rows of teeth. These teeth spin within each other at high speed. Grain enters the centre of the chamber and burst into fine meal. The milling temperature is low. None of the moving metal parts touch. More of the nutrients are saved.

Crazy Facts Corner

• The expression “Keeping your nose to the grindstone” dates back to early corn milling when the miller paid close attention and sniffed for trouble. The bad smell of stone on stone meant that the mill stones were touching.
• Cornmeal is a natural pesticide as some insects' digestive organs will swell after consuming cornmeal and water, causing them to die.

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornmeal

http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq.html

http://www.osv.org/education/WaterPower/Grist.html

http://www.beckmanmill.org/inside_mill.htm

http://www.namamillers.org/ci_products_corn.html

Researched by Dynamic Dave