Full Description
The Science and Culture of Latin American Foods: Harnessing Ingredients for Health combines science and technology to demonstrate the importance of rescuing and preserving traditional and ancestral knowledge to exploit the functional benefits of the regions' many roots, plants, seeds, insects, and more. Divided into four sections, Ingredients, Nutraceuticals, Functional Foods, and Cuisine, the book discusses the sustainable development of these ingredients while highlighting origin, production, classification, and medicinal properties. Readers will discover the potential of potent bioactive peptides derived from native foods like cacao, chipilín leaves, and Huauzontle, a pre-Hispanic ingredient thriving and surviving in Mexican cuisine.
In addition, they will learn how Asia and Africa influence Latin American cuisine and about the importance these regional culinary dishes have in global gastronomy today.
Contents
Introduction
1. Mexican food: A UNESCO intangible cultural heritage of humanity
2. Colombian Gastronomic Heritage
3. Bioactive peptides derived from artisanal cocoa bean fermentation
Ingredients
4. Cocoa: Food for gods
5. Uses and potential health benefits of purple corn: a Mesoamerican ancient food for the XXI century
6. Chipilin, nutritional and functional properties and their use in Chiapas cuisine.
7. Huauzontle: multifunctional properties of a pre-Hispanic ingredient that survives in Mexican cuisine
8. Yacon: an ancestral root with a modern approach to food science
9. Brosimum alicastrum Sw. seed (Ramon tree): an unconventional ingredient to prepare healthy food
10. Carob: the forgotten Mediterranean food
11. Tannat grape, the Uruguayan emblematic variety: composition and potential effects on health of wine and its byproducts
12. Quinoa: The Functional Food Revolution
Nutraceutical Foods
13. Nutraceutical and innovative foods using common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) and maize (Zea mays L.) as ingredients
14. Hibiscus sabdariffa: an ancestral Asian plant-food and their multicultural influence in Mesoamerica
15. More than a simple drink: traditions, uses and bioactive properties of yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis)
16. Fruits from Colombia to the World
17. Nutritional and functional potential of Non-Traditional Uruguayan fruits in the process of commercial development
Functional Foods
18. Unconventional foods from southern Mexico: properties and consumption
19. Mole: a symphony of smells and flavors from Mexico to the world
20. Mexican edible insects: nutraceutical potential and culinary applications
21. Edible insects: Processing technologies for their utilization
22. Beans: Ancestral food important for human health
23. Asian influence in tropical fruits traditionally consumed in Mexican gastronomy
24. Unconventional food plants from Brazil
25. Brazilian Tucumã fruits (Astrocaryum spp.): The missing link between science and traditional knowledge
26. Mexican Artisanal Cheeses: Preserving typicity and genuity through lactic acid bacteria cooperation.
Cuisine
27. Cuisine of nuns from post-viceroyalty Mexico: Functional or just "Mexicatessen"?
28. The relationship between dweller and mangrove: Taxtihil a ceremonial dish
29. Valorization of regional cuisine in the Costa Chica: Cultural background, culinary uses and potential health benefits
