Entire pieces of muscle meat and reconstituted products

From the history of bread

Whatever form it takes, pita or tortillas, pumpernickel or sourdough, bread has been eaten by every culture. What’s more, this one food has been a part of our lives for more than 30,000 years. But why? Bread is easy to produce from common natural ingredients, and it packs solid nutrition with powerful carbohydrates that are a great source of energy.

The First Bread

At some point, prehistoric man went from merely mixing grains in water to cooking these ingredients on hot stones. Research released from a 2010 study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences showed prehistoric mortar and pestle-like rocks contained traces of starch, probably from the roots of cattails and ferns.

As wheat and barley were cultivated in the Fertile Crescent, about 10,000 years ago, our ancestors shifted from a diet of animal meat (hunter-gatherer) to one that contained more plants (agricultural). Of course this impacted not only diets, but also how prehistoric man lived. The advent of agricultural societies meant that people started to settle in one place, rather than roaming. It also allowed larger groups of people to live together. Our modern lives would not exist if man had never shifted from the hunter-gatherer life.

How Bread Changed

Leavened bread, the precursor to our modern fluffy loaves, also probably first developed during prehistoric times. Yeast is all around, so if some found its way into a bowl of grain and water, the mixture would have naturally undergone leavening. Yeast cells have been discovered in bread made by ancient Egyptians dating back to 300 B.C.

Of course the next major change that allowed our forbearers to get closer to our modern bread came with the introduction of refined flour. Early flour would have been coarsely ground, meaning those loaves would have been denser and been somewhat akin to our whole grain loaves of today. However, around 800 B.C. the Mesopotamians created the first milling process to more finely grind grain into flour.

Modern Bread

With industrialization, bread changed yet again. Otto Frederick Rohwedder created a machine that would not only slice, but also wrap bread, in 1928. And while generations of bread eaters have preferred white bread and viewed it as a form of status, that too changed in the last few years of the 20^th century. The nutritional value of whole grain breads has come to be valued more as our attitudes about diet and lifestyle have shifted.

Another area where industrialized practices have changed bread is the Chorleywood Bread Process, which speeds up the fermentation process and allows for lesser quality flour to be used. This process, in addition to chemical additives that can be added to bread dough to decrease the rising and baking time, have dramatically changed not only the structure of modern bread, but also its nutritional value. At House of Bread, we don’t look for short cuts that save us money. Our mission is to craft the highest quality bread that evokes the history of bread, when it was a food rich in nutrients that sustained civilizations.

CATEGORIES OF PROCESSED MEAT PRODUCTS

When viewing meat products of various size, shape and colour in butcher shops or meat sections of supermarkets, there appears to be is a great variety of such products with different taste characteristics. In some countries there may be several hundred different meat products, each with its individual product name and taste characteristics.

At a closer look, however, it turns out that many of the different products with different product names have great similarities. This issue can be even better understood and becomes more transparent when the processing technologies are analyzed. Based on the processingtechnologies used and taking into account the treatment of raw materials and the individual processing steps, it is possible to categorize processed meat products in six broad groups.

Table 5: Meat products grouped according to the procesing technology applied

Based on the grouping the meat products and their processing technologies are described in detail in the respective chapters (page 103, 115, 127, 149, 171, 221). Hereunder, a definition of each group is given:

Fresh processed meat products

Definition

These products are meat mixes composed of comminuted muscle meat(Fig. 125, 126, 127), with varying quantities of animal fat. Products are salted only, curing is not practiced. Non-meat ingredients are added in smaller quantities for improvement of flavour and binding, in low-cost versions larger quantities are added for volume extension. All meat and non-meat ingredients are added fresh(raw). Heat treatment (frying, cooking) is applied immediately prior to consumption to make the products palatable. If the fresh meat mixes are filled in casings, they are defined as sausages (e.g. frying sausages). If other portioning is customary, the products are known as patties, kebab,etc. Convenience products, such as chicken nuggets (see page 190), have a similar processing technology and can also be included in this group. In contrast to the rest of the group, chicken nuggets etc. are already fried in oil at the manufacturing stage during the last step of production.

Cured meat cuts

Entire pieces of muscle meat and reconstituted products

Definition

Cured meat cuts are made of entire pieces of muscle meat and can be sub-divided into two groups, cured-raw meats (Fig. 128) and cured-cooked meats(Fig. 129). The curing for both groups, cured-raw and cured-cooked, is in principle similar: The meat pieces are treated with small amounts of nitrite, either as dry salt or as salt solution in water.

The difference between the two groups of cured meats is:

• Cured-raw meats do not undergo any heat treatment during their manufacture. They undergo a processing period, which comprises curing, fermentation and ripening in controlled climatized conditions, which makes the products palatable. The products are consumed raw/uncooked.
• Cured-cooked meats, after the curing process of the raw muscle meat, always undergo heat treatment to achieve the desired palatability.

Fig. 128: Cured-raw ham

Fig. 129: Cured-cooked products

Raw-cooked meat products

Definition

The product components muscle meat, fat and non-meat ingredients which are processed raw, i.e. uncooked by comminuting and mixing. The resulting viscous mix/batter is portioned in sausages or otherwise and thereafter submitted to heat treatment, i.e. “cooked”. The heat treatment induces protein coagulation which results in a typical firm-elastic texture for raw-cooked products (Fig. 130, 131). In addition to the typical texture the desired palatability and a certain degree of bacterial stability is achieved.