Christopher Green wrote in
:

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 01:10:05 -0600, Archimedes Plutonium
wrote:


Chris there is an experiment I am anxious to do for some time now
but the materials are not that easily available to me. I eat alot
of the cereal Kaisha which is puffed cereal grains such as wheat,
millet, rice, etc.

I was wondering since most every pineseed is edible whether they
puff up when heated. I suppose they do. And whenever I order pine
seed, I just hate to use any on such a test.

Puffed grains are made by either of two processes: like popcorn
(in hot air or hot oil, or by microwave energy), or gun popping
(in which the grains are rapidly decompressed). Either process is
exacting, since success depends largely on the moisture content of
the grains being in a rather narrow range. Cereal and popcorn
makers control the moisture of their stock very carefully.

Puffed rice, made in very hot oil, is traditional in Japan. It
doesn't puff so dramatically as Rice Krispies.

There isn't any reason in principle why pine nuts wouldn't puff;
you could try some in hot oil the way you'd do popcorn, or in a
pressure cooker. With experimentation, it might work.

I wonder if spruce seeds when heated form a nice edible puffed
cereal?

Edible, just not so easy to come by as pine nuts. I don't know
about other spruces, but Engelmann spruce is definitely edible:
catkins, immature cones, inner bark, and shoot tips can all be
cooked up. It has a long history in folk medicine as well. Seeds
are as edible as pine nuts are. See
http://montana.plant-life.org/sample/spruce01.htm

And judging from the taste of pinenuts I would think puffed
pineseed would be delicious.

Might be. Just a question of under what conditions you can get it
to puff.


My suspicion is that they may not puff properly. The grains or other
seeds (there is a bean from South America that is popped) generally
have special properties that help them puff. They tend to have a lot
of starch, and a sturdy bran or other shell. They also tend to be
low in oil, though that may not be important.

I would start a puffing experiment for pine nuts by keeping them in
the shell, and then using a gun for the popping method. Out of the
shell, there just isn't any real skin to hold the pressure in.

Sean