Page:Foods and their adulteration; origin, manufacture, and composition of food products; description of common adulterations, food standards, and national food laws and regulations (IA foodstheiradulte02wile).pdf/255

 tion takes place. The proteins of buckwheat have some agglutinating power, and thus, when treated as above, make a cake capable of a considerable degree of aeration. Baking powders are often used as a substitute for yeast and permit of preparation in a few minutes instead of waiting for the fermentation above mentioned. The product made in this way cannot be considered so palatable or nutritious as the old-fashioned product. The batter is baked on a smooth hot iron or soapstone, polished and kept bright in order to prevent the sticking of the cake. The proper polishing of the iron is a better means of preventing sticking than greasing. The batter is poured over the smooth iron and is of a consistency to flatten out without help and to form a film over the baking iron, which produces a cake about one-fourth of an inch in thickness. The cake is to be turned as soon as the side in contact with the iron is brown. It is evident that in this baking process there can be no very profound change in the starch granules, but this does not appear to materially interfere with the digestibility of the product. Buckwheat cakes are eaten hot, usually with butter and sirup. Maple sirup, sorghum sirup, or cane sirup in a pure state are highly prized for use with buckwheat cakes. These sirups are both condimental and nutritious. Mixed sirups made of glucose, melted brown sugar, or molasses, or mixtures of all these bodies are more commonly furnished to the consumer than the pure sirup mentioned above. Honey is also used very extensively as a condimental flavor for cakes of this kind.

Adulterations.—There is probably no bread or cake making material which is subjected to more extensive adulteration than buckwheat flour. Much of what is sold as buckwheat flour may be regarded as imitations of that substance. Mixtures of rye flour, Indian corn flour, wheat flour, and other ground cereals are used as a substitute for buckwheat. There can be no objection from the hygienic point of view to such substitutes but the use of these mixtures under the name of buckwheat can be regarded in no other light than as an unpardonable fraud.

Detection of Adulterations.—There is rarely any mineral adulteration practiced with buckwheat flour and if so it is easily detected by incineration. Any content of ash, unless baking powder has been used, above 2 percent may be regarded with suspicion as indicating an admixture of some mineral substance. The cereal flours used for adulteration are readily detected by the microscope in the hands of an experienced observer. The field of the microscope has only to be compared with the microscopic appearance of genuine buckwheat starch in order to detect the added substance.

Buckwheat Starch.—The microscopic appearance of buckwheat starch is shown in the accompanying figure. The granules of buckwheat starch are very characteristic. They consist of chains or groups of more or less angular granules with a well defined nucleus, and without rings or with