tapioca, part 4

"Peter Aitken" <[email hidden]> wrote in
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Quoted message said:

"Rhonda Anderson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

"Peter Aitken" <[email hidden]> wrote in
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Quoted message said:

<Ramset> wrote in message
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> Go to your pantry or check at your local Supermarket, (ie: read the
> packet -- might be difficult for some of you, judging the replies)
> out of 5 major brands of corn flour/starch here, only 1 is actually
> made from maize.
>

Quoted message said:

Guess what, all the cornstarch here says Ingredients: cornstarch.
And guess what cornstarch is made from?

Not buying into any arguments here (I seem to be missing some posts
in this thread anyway, so not sure exactly what was going on), I'm
just curious.

Where I am (Australia) we don't use the term "cornstarch". The
equivalent product, which I would use to thicken sauces etc., is
called "cornflour". While you can buy cornflour which is made from
maize, cornflour is also made from wheat - labelled "wheaten
cornflour". I think I've seen more of this than the maize type. As
far as I'm aware, unless you have specific dietary requirements,
they're interchangeable - recipes don't normally make any
distinction.

Do you have a similar product in the US? Is there a wheat starch
which you would use in the same way as cornstarch?

Rhonda Anderson
Cranebrook, NSW, Australia

Someone posted that cornstarch that does not specifically say "made
from maize" is in fact made from wheat. THis struck me as odd so I did
some research and found out that the claim is 100% false - cornstarch
is all made from corn. Cornflour is exactly the same thing. I have
never seen "wheaten cornflour" and suppose that might be a product
that thickens the same as cornflour but is made from wheat - but
that's not what we were talking about. In the US it is common to
thicken with wheat flour but I am not aware of a refined wheat starch
used for this purpose.

OK,thanks,this is obviously one of those products that differs from
country to country. Perhaps the person posting about cornstarch from
wheat is also from Australia or another country where cornflour (which is
a direct substitution for US cornstarch in recipes) is not always made
from maize.

I believe, from references such as this one
(http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Cornstarch ) that in the US the
term cornflour may mean a finely ground cornmeal, rather than the starch.
However, in Australia the term cornflour only refers to the starch, and
is what I would use if I were making a US recipe calling for cornstarch.
That is what I was referring to in my previous post.

Some of the cornflour sold here is made from wheat (here
http://www.homeshop.com.au/search.asp?keyword=cornflour. If you click on
the product names you can see that the generic brand product is wheaten
cornflour, while the White Wings product is maize cornflour. There are
other brands of both available, just not on Woolworths online at the
moment<g>😉.

Obviously that's not the case in the US, so I wonder if it may be because
wheat is the major grain crop here. We don't have the same history of
using corn as a grain for meal or flour production as the US. Maybe I'll
have to do some resarch.I find these differences in what we would see on
the supermarket shelves fascinating.

Rhonda Anderson
Cranebrook, NSW, Australia

Ramset said:

To the original poster Michael, from your description you more than
likely are using wheat starch, I would suggest you change your brand.

To others, I have better things to do than converse with fools,
perhaps the FDA should tighten up your food labelling laws.

Your superciliously ignorant belligerence is amusing. Very interesting
how you assume that because your country - whichever one that may be -
does something, it's universal. The plain, simple, absolute fact is that
cornstarch is only made from maize in the U.S. It is the absolute name
of a single product. In the U.S. "corn" refers to maize; never to wheat.

All starches in the U.S. are labeled in absolute terms. Potato starch,
rice starch, tapioca starch, etc. are all single-item products. Modified
starches can be given brand names (National 465, Clear-jel, etc.) but
their absolute names must also be given in all labeling. So if it comes
from waxy maize or wheat or whatever, it is so labeled on all packages
of it.

Modern modified starches have made arrowroot all but obsolete for
large-scale commercial food processing with a few notable exceptions.

Here's some material: <http://www.fao.org/ag/ags/agsi/starch41.htm>

Pastorio

Quoted message said:

Peter Aitken said:

Guess what, all the cornstarch here says Ingredients: cornstarch. And guess
what cornstarch is made from? Try a web search if you can't guess. And no
wonder you are ignorant about arrowroot, making your own you probably screw
it up royally. It is well known that arrowroot is preferred for long coking
becauise it keeps its thickening properties longer than other thickeners. If
you don;t believe me you can check out On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee.

What a pinhead!

In article <[email hidden]>, Ramset <>

Quoted message said:

To the original poster Michael, from your description you more than
likely are using wheat starch, I would suggest you change your brand.

Wheat starch is otherwise known as "flour".

Quoted message said:

To others, I have better things to do than converse with fools,
perhaps the FDA should tighten up your food labelling laws.

Corn starch is made from corn.

Hence the name "corn" on the label.
USA labelling laws are some of the tightest in the world.

You were wrong.

Period.

Cheers and have a nice troll!

Quoted message said:

Peter Aitken said:

Guess what, all the cornstarch here says Ingredients: cornstarch. And guess
what cornstarch is made from? Try a web search if you can't guess. And no
wonder you are ignorant about arrowroot, making your own you probably screw
it up royally. It is well known that arrowroot is preferred for long coking
becauise it keeps its thickening properties longer than other thickeners. If
you don;t believe me you can check out On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee.

What a pinhead!

--
Om.

"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-[censored]." -Jack Nicholson

OmManiPadmeOmelet <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Ramset <>

Quoted message said:

To the original poster Michael, from your description you more than
likely are using wheat starch, I would suggest you change your brand.

Wheat starch is otherwise known as "flour".

Actually, while the original poster here wasn't very polite, and perhaps
making assumptions that the products in his country were the same as
found in the US (something done from time to time in rfc by people of
varying nationalities :-) ), the wheat starch I think he's referring to
is not flour.

Here in Australia you can buy wheaten cornflour. Cornflour here is not
finely ground cornmeal, it is a starch product you use to thicken foods
etc. in exactly the same way you use cornstarch in the US (a direct
substitute in recipes) - however while some is made from corn, some is
made from wheat, they are labelled to show which they are derived from.

The product is not the same as flour. It is a starch derived from wheat,
in the same way that cornstarch is a starch derived from corn, not simply
ground corn.

http://www.asiafood.org/glossary_2.cfm?wordid=2621
http://www.asiafood.org/glossary_1.cfm?alpha=W&wordid=2636&startno=1
&endno=25

Rhonda Anderson
Cranebrook, NSW, Australia