Tortillas: Wheat Flour and Corn Products

LW Rooney,Sergio O. Serna-Saldivar

• Editorial: Woodhead Publishing and AACC International Press
• Año: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780128123683
• Categoría: Tecnología e ingeniería
• Categoría: Ciencia de los alimentos

Corn and wheat are among the most important cereals worldwide, representing many of the calories and proteins consumed. Tortillas and tortilla-related products are among the fastest-growing segments of the food industry and represent a sizeable portion of those calories.

Tortillas: Wheat Flour and Corn Products answers the food industry's need to meet the growing demand for high-quality tortillas and tortilla-based foods. This book will guide food scientists, product developers, and nutritionists through the fascinating science and technology behind the production of corn and wheat flour tortillas.

This title is the most comprehensive English-language book of its kind. It fully describes the technology, nutritional value, and quality control measures of corn and wheat flour tortillas, tortilla chips, and related products. It accomplishes this through 300 pages of quality text, complemented by easy-to-understand facts, figures, tables, and summaries that seamlessly guide users to an understanding of the fundamental underlying principles that optimize tortilla production and guide product development.

Tortillas: Wheat Flour and Corn Products is ideal for academics and industry professionals, including food science and nutrition students; people working in the tortilla and snack food industries; industry staff interested in the quality control/assurance aspects of tortillas; and professionals interested in cereal processing and product development. Edited by the renowned food science educators in tortilla production, this book provides high-quality training at both the academic and corporate levels

• A history of corn and wheat flour tortillas
• Ideal physicochemical properties of corn kernels and wheat flours to optimize processing
• Quality attributes of processed products and quality control/troubleshooting
• Food safety and quality control, from the raw materials to intermediate and finished products
• Various industrial setups and pilot plant techniques currently used to manufacture wheat flour tortillas
• Ideal physical, chemical, and rheological properties of tortilla flours
• Roles of leavening agents in tortilla quality
• Functions of dough emulsifiers and reducing agents in textural shelf life and "process-ability"
• Effects and roles of preservatives and supplemented enzymes on shelf life
• Common quality and consistency issues encountered by the flour tortilla industry, along with solutions and recommendations
• Optimum properties of corn kernels for tortillas and nixtamalized snacks, such as parched fried corn, corn chips, and tortilla chips
• Milling processes and quality control testing used to obtain lime-cooked dough, the backbone for the fabrication of table tortillas and corn and tortilla chips

Chapter 1

History of Corn and Wheat Tortillas

Sergio O. Serna-Saldivar, Centro de Biotecnología FEMSA, Tecnologico de Monterrey Monterrey, N.L., Mexico

SUMMARY

Mesoamerica is the cradle of corn and its wide array of nixtamalized foods. Corn developed from teosintle, and its cultivation was greatly responsible for transforming indigenous people into progressive farmers. In order to improve its eating qualities and nutritional value, the Indians cooked corn kernels with a leachate of wood ashes or lime. The cooked corn kernels were tender and easier to mill into a dough that was the backbone for production of an ample array of foods. Notably, nixtamalization enhanced the nutritional profile of the foods, especially in terms of supplying the needed calcium that was scarce in their diets. Modern nixtamalized products are industrially manufactured following the same procedures used by the Aztecs but with high-output equipment. Today, tortillas and related products are produced from either fresh masa or dry masa flour (DMF). The technology of DMF production was developed by Mexican entrepreneurs in the middle of the twentieth century and soon became the preferred technology for adoption of nixtamalized products in developed countries. The advantage of using DMF is that it readily yields wet masa after a few minutes of blending with water and thus expedites the manufacturing of finished products. The most relevant nixtamalized product has been the tortilla, which is still the single most-consumed food among Mexicans. The production of masa and tortillas originated the second-most-popular snack foods consumed nowadays: fried corn and tortilla chips. An exchange of corn and wheat occurred after Columbus discovered America in 1492 and the conquistador Cortes subjugated the Aztecs in 1521. Mexican cuisine soon adopted wheat and developed wheat tortillas, which were preferred by the Spaniards. Their industrial production exploded when North Americans adopted and massively produced wheat tortillas during the second part of the past century. Today, both corn in the form of tortillas and related snacks and wheat flour tortillas are manufactured and sold all over the world.

About 10,000 years ago some place in Mesoamerica, indigenous people gathered various plants, among them, the ancestor of the corn (Zea mays L.) we know today. The cultivation of this grass, named teosintle, and other native plants gradually transformed the nomadic gatherer into a sedentary farmer, and primitive agriculture was born. Ancient farmers started to select and manipulate teosintle (Zea mexicana) and in a couple of centuries transformed it into several pre-Columbian corn races. Immediately, corn became the key crop for subsistence and the center of their lives. Along with this critical and important development, people also carved utensils to grind and process the ancient flinty corns. To soften the kernels and facilitate grinding, the Indians cooked the grains; thus, the first prototypes of tortillas were born. A gigantic step forward occurred when kernels were first cooked with a pinch of wood ashes and later on with lime (CaO). This alkali treatment enhanced the nutritional value of the grain and its palatability and allowed the production of a cohesive dough, or masa, which was utilized to produce various staple foods such as tortillas, gruels and beverages, and tamales. The introduction of other corn races from South America further improved agricultural systems and yields, provided new genetic material, and permitted the production of an array of corn genotypes for different food applications. These races varied in grain size, texture, color, and even nutritional value and constituted the basic germplasm for the current varieties and hybrids we grow today. By then, corn had become sacred and therefore was the central part of practically all Mesoamerican cultures. Then, in 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in America, and soon the Spaniard conquistadors, led by Hernan Cortes, reached and subjugated the most advanced Indian culture, the Nahuatls, or Aztecs. The melting of these two contrasting cultures began and with it, the exchange of agriculture and culinary practices. Right away, the foreigners realized that corn was the most important crop and the basic raw material for the production of numerous exotic foods or dishes. The Spaniards sent corn to Europe, and return voyages brought back wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and rice (Oryza sativa L.). Exchange and dissemination of the three most important cereal crops occurred. The Mexican cuisine soon incorporated wheat and other unknown plant materials from the Old World, and the mestizo cuisine gradually developed. Wheat flour tortillas were among the most preferred products developed.

Today the 10-chromosome corn that encodes precious genetic information is the most important cereal crop in the world in terms of total production. It is found on all six continents and in practically all places around the globe. During the past decades, the food utilization of special types of corns by other cultures has steadily increased because the combination of corn and lime imparts unique flavor and properties. Table tortillas and fried chips are known all over the planet, thanks to the recipes inherited first from ancient Mesoamericans and later on from mestizos. Likewise, wheat flour tortillas have gained popularity and market share, especially in wheat-consuming cultures; in some countries, tortillas compete strongly with table bread. Interestingly, tortillas have even reached into space because they frequently constitute part of the diet of astronauts.

This chapter reviews the history of corn and nixtamalized products and the role these foods played before and after the Spaniards discovered the American Continents. In addition, the history of wheat and its flour tortillas is discussed.

Agriculture in America

Cereals, through the centuries, have been intimately associated with human food uses. For a long time, humankind survived almost entirely on a meat diet. Gradually people learned to use ingenuity, develop tools, make use of fire, and change their habits according to climatic changes. Humans became food gatherers, and all classes of plants and animals, including the seeds of grasses, became food sources (Orth and Shellenberger 1988).

The range of plants cultivated by indigenous Americans was extremely wide. The main contributions include cotton (Gossypum hirsitum L.), green tomatoes (Physalis philadelphica Lam), beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), peppers (Capsicum annum L.), squash (Cucurbita pepo L.), amaranthus (Amaranthus hypochondriacus L.), avocado (Persea americana Miller), papaya (Carica papaya L.), and cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.). Corn has its own special place because nowadays it is the most-produced grain in the world.

The exceptional cultural expansion of the Mesoamerican peoples during pre-Hispanic times was undoubtedly based on the fact that, for several millenniums, the inhabitants of southern Mexico and the neighboring areas of Central America consciously undertook the arduous and prolonged task of domesticating an important group of native plants. As a result, the first agricultural practices and stationary living patterns were established, both of which were fundamental to the development of humankind. The agriculture developed independently in the Old and New Worlds in such a way that the first Spaniards arriving in America not only found an extremely varied universe of plants unknown in Europe but also witnessed sophisticated cultivation systems that were totally unfamiliar to them. The Spaniards found that the four basic components of the pre-Columbian Mexican diet (corn, beans, squash, and peppers) were widely cultivated (Hernandez 1959). New-World plants were inherently superior to the staples of the Old World; in fact, their introduction into Europe fueled a population explosion (Valles Septien 1994). Corn grows in areas excessively dry for rice and too wet for wheat, and it is usually more productive due to its thermodynamic efficiency. Corn photosynthesizes by the C4 pathway, which is more efficient in terms of use of solar energy than the C3 pathway of plants such as rice and wheat (Serna Saldivar 2010).

Mexico is well known to have been one of the centers of agricultural invention. Archeological findings clearly indicate full agriculture or farming by the year 2300 b.c.e.; 1,400 years later (900 b.c.e.), Mesoamericans initiated the use of irrigation (León Portilla 1972, 1974;, Staller et al 2006). The form of cultivation known as milpas (corn patches) is one of the most efficient and ecologically suitable techniques. It essentially consisted of planting corn accompanied by beans, peppers, squash, and amaranthus. As a result, a symbiosis was achieved: the nitrogen required by the soil was produced by Rhizopus, which grew in roots; squash helped to control weeds by creating shade and producing natural herbicides; while insects and blights were prevented by plants growing alongside the main crops. Intercropping also re...