Consuming The Inedible by Jeremy M. MacClancy Jeya Henry Helen Macbeth

Author:Jeremy M. MacClancy,Jeya Henry,Helen Macbeth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Berghahn Books

9. LIME AS THE KEY ELEMENT

A ‘NON-FOOD’ IN FOOD FOR SUBSISTENCE

Ricardo Ávila, Martín Tena and Peter Hubbard

Food and ‘Non-food’

People in general seldom concern themselves with the boundaries between what is edible and what is not. The distinction lies deep within what might be called their cultural universe, where children learn, almost without realising it, what is food and what is not food. That is to say, for humans, cultural patterns are the means by which they distinguish what is eatable. However, there are other fundamental aspects which influence this: for example, the physical/ chemical composition of substances. These establish edibility at a quite different level.

In our view, there are two clear major factors that establish the boundaries between the edible and the inedible. The first of these is the physical/chemical composition. There are a number of products in our environment that cannot be eaten because they do not yield nourishment or permit digestion, or may even be toxic. We cannot consume metallic objects, granite rocks or wooden logs, unless these are reduced to miniscule particles (Vasquéz 1997). The second factor is the cultural one, which is arbitrarily determined, and separates the eatable from the uneatable (Millán et al. 2004). What is more, cultures differ in relation to these concepts, and such differences are well exemplified in this volume.

This chapter concerns lime (calcium hydroxide), which is generally not considered to be ‘food’, though the vast majority of Mexicans, almost unaware of the fact, daily consume it. This is because it is mixed with maize grains in order to produce nixtamal, which once washed and ground is transformed into the dough used to prepare tortillas, a food which is the physiological and cultural basis of subsistence for Mexican people, together with tamales, atole and a great variety of other products and dishes.1

Introducing Nixtamal

The term nixtamal2 refers to the process of treating maize so as to transform it into a basic food. Nixtamal is both the process of treating maize (Zea mays) and the product of this process. The nixtamal process incorporates two fundamental actions: the gradual soaking of the grain, and the insertion of the calcium ion into it. Firstly, the penetration of water into the grain is extremely important, since it enables the gelatinisation of the starch, which is a fundamental condition for the development of the physical and transformative properties of the final product: the tortilla and other foods derived from the dough. Secondly, the integration of lime into maize provides the following advantages to maize. It makes it easier to remove the pericarp; it controls the development of undesirable micro-organisms; it facilitates the soaking of the grains; it increases the calcium content; it strongly modifies the physical/chemical and structural properties of the grain by integrating chemically the chains of starch and oils; it increases the yellow colour of the grain; it increases its alkalinity; it causes greater gelatinisation of the starch granules, producing changes in texture; and it improves its nutritive qualities, releasing niacin (vitamin B3), which is to be found in the grain, but needs to be processed so as to become available for human consumption.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.