SC - Inflatable Vinyl Mattresses

[Stefan li Rous]

Sue Clemenger wrote:
> 
> Along the same lines, but from the U.S. side, I was thumbing through one
> of my Williams & Sonoma cookbooks, and they had a good definition of
> what we Americans call "corn starch."  As it turns out, it's not
> "starch" in the strict definition of the word, it's a very particular
> type of _flour_, "ground from the endosperm of corn--the white heart of
> the kernel--and, because it contains no gluten, used to give a delicate
> texture to cookies and other baked goods. _Also known as cornflour_.
> [emphasis mine]"  I would be really interested to know why it's marketed
> in the U.S. as starch....<g>
> --Maire

Because the levels of complex carbohydrates in the form of starch found
in the particular variety of maize used for this purpose is such that
the ground flour, after degerminating, hulling, etc., is something over
96%, IIRC. Whatever the number is, it has no gluten to speak of, and it
functions quite well for most uses and most people as pure starch, even
though the process used to isolate starch from wheat meal isn't performed.

Or, to put it another way, because they _can_. Think of it in terms of
the rice flour sometimes included in British shortbread recipes to
soften the overall flour mix. It's not there because rice is the first
thing one thinks of in connection with shortbread, but because its
addition adds no special rice character and produces instead a mixture
whose character is of wheat flour with less gluten. Even though, in
strict terms, it's not starch, but the ground endosperm of rice. 

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com