Scratchpad

From OSR

Contents 1 Starches 1.1 Bun Starches 1.2 Pear Starches 2 Phytoliths 3 Teeth 4 Well, thought I'd start 5 Introduction 6 Materials and Methods 6.1 The plants 6.2 The cooking methods 6.3 The methods of analysis 7 Results 7.1 General results 7.2 Specific results by cooking method 8 Discussion

Starches

Here are some nice, soon-to-be cooked starches, that look like starches.

Bun Starches

The table of contents is generated automajically for you.

Pear Starches

And tables are not too difficult:

Starch 1	Starch 2	Starch 3
Insightful observation 1	Insightful observation 2	Insightful observation 3

Phytoliths

This is not a pear, I swear!

Teeth

I wanted to put images I made yesterday of teeth, but they were all too big. Oh well, enjoy this ugly sucker instead!

Well, thought I'd start

I've started a little bit of a paper below in what I consider a *very* outline-y and rough form. I'm also teaching myself to write in the wiki style.

Introduction

• Identification of plant starches via light microscopy has become important way of documenting domestication of plants, diet of ancient groups, tool use, and even social and spatial organization of sites (selected refs),
  • Starches are identified by shape, size and presence of physical features, like lamellae, hilum, 'dimples' etc. (cite. . . what? starch book?)
• Starches are important foods, but are in most cases cooked. (cite?)
  • Cooking is known to change starch structure, but this is mostly documented using X-ray diffraction or other methods of analyzing starches. (cite holly's food books?)
  • Few studies of effect of cooking on shape, size and features of starches.
• We present here results of a series of experiments on Old World plant foods to document how different forms of cooking, such as fermenting, baking, boiling, grinding and parching, affect the features of starch grains.

Materials and Methods

The plants

• Grains: red hard wheat Triticum aestivum, hulled barley Hordeum vulgare, sorghum Sorghum spp., millet (unspecified species), oats Avena sativa, rice Oryza sativa,
• Legumes: mung bean Vigna radiate, chickpea Cicer arietinum, lentils Lens culinaris, green pea Pisum sativum

The cooking methods

• whole grain boiled, 1m, 5m, 10m, 30m, 60m. (samples added to water after it was boiling, water in test tubes refilled to constant height so as not to run dry)
• ground boiled, 1m, 5m, 10m, 30m, 60m. (samples ground to coarse powder with mortar and pestle, then added to water, which was then boiled)
• ground baked (samples mixed with (how much?) water into a paste, then put in a muffle furnace at 200 degrees C until dried and solidified into solid mass
• parched (samples placed whole in muffle furnace for 3 min at 200C)
• popped (grains only placed in hot pot with closed lid and popped)
• fermented (wheat, barley and chickpeas were ground and placed in water with bakers' yeast at room temp for ? days)

The methods of analysis

• whole samples were either gently ground or scraped with scalpel over microscope slide, with water used to mount cover slip
• samples examined under light microscope, either a leica ?? or a ?? with attached camera and software for capturing images and with polarization lens for looking at extinction crosses
• at least 5 images of each sample taken, sample described in detail, as well as any changes from whole, uncooked form and from other cooking stages (e.g. between 1 and 5 mins boiling, etc.)
• degree of damage noted (damage defined as: swelling, getting lumpy, loss of features like lamellae, fissure or dimples, reduction or change in extinction cross)

Results

General results

1. more water = more damaged
2. longer cooked = more damaged
3. ground = more quickly damaged

Specific results by cooking method

blah blah blah, description of trends, nice photos.
Also:

1. Grains vs. Legumes
2. individual species

Discussion

• some starch grains survive a lot of cooking, therefore can be useful as markers of diet even for traditionally cooked food sources.
  • particularly food cooked whole, not ground, starch grains survive undamaged (good for porridge, possibly tubers (not included in our study).
• Identifying cooked starches to species becomes difficult as they lose defining characteristics
  • Ground foods and those cooked in water quickly lose defining features, may be difficult to ID foods that are traditionally eaten as mash or baked (bad for many grains)