I'm a grain inspector in Illinois with roots back in Siouxland area of Iowa/South Dakota and I am ENTHRALLED to hear durum, hard red winter wheat, VITREOUS, protein and starch content, etc. in a video. Fun fact, one of the most commonly grown durum varieties in the US is called Desert Durum. It's grown in Arizona and the California Imperial Valley. It's good stuff. So good, it gets shipped to Italy to be ground into semolina to be used in pasta there, and here in the States! THIS IS LITERALLY MY FIELD AND I LOVE IT, THANKS ADAM.
@@connorwutzke Only advice I can give is to talk your guidance councilor. They know what courses are needed to apply into the field you want to study in U.
This channel has made me aware of how many people spend their careers studying very specific foods. Pasta, bread, beer, blue food dye, etc. You never think about college faculty members researching butter, but they exist. It's like a secret society of food nerds.
@@SpaceCadet4Jesus being unaware of incredibly specialized studies/sciences in a particular field in isn't a sign of being sheltered. That's a sign of being someone who isn't an expert in that field. 🤷🏾♀️
@@Nikki0417 Eh, sometime in your life you should've really *noticed* that everything in your world that isn't a plant, animal, or rock, was made by human hands and designed by human engineers. That sticks with you, and then it becomes trivially true that for everything you see there is at least one expert, and that some of those experts are friendly guys willing to answer questions.
I don't think you mentioned this, but "durum" is literally the Latin word for "hard" - the Romans who later became Italians likely named the species for the relevant quality of its grains
@@BakersTuts It is, duro is a form of the word durum, (dative or ablative case) and meter comes from the Latin word meaning to measure. Roughly 70% of English vocabulary are either Latin words or a combination of 2 or more Latin words. Over 90% of English words with 4 or more syllables are Latin or Greek by way of Latin.
ok good im glad im not the only one who watches these a bunch of times lol, i genuinely think that seeing so much of it so many times has helped me absorb info and become a much better cook
I love science Mondays! And I gotta say: The amount of research you must do, and work to translate it to us less savvy, is awe inspiring Adam. I often forget you're not quite a food scientist like some others like Alton Brown and co., Or at least it's not your formal background. It really hit me, for whatever reason, today listening to you discuss things. Keep it up!
loved when he repeatedly kept fixing his letter D in his semolina drawing of DURUM, I appreciate these little attention-to-detail light hearted moments in his videos 🙂
Most USA "semolina" is a fairly coarse grind. In Italy, there's also flour made from the same wheat that's ground more finely, closer to familiar bread flour. It's usually called "remilled" ("remacinata") to indicate that it's not the coarse little stuff we know of.
As a North Dakota resident I enjoy seeing my state represented in any way. North Dakota is often called the forgotten state. During the summer here the field are all yellow and golden brown. Farmers here indeed grow lots of durum wheat and lots of canola. Very beautiful
When I hear "North Dakota" I immediately think of walleyes, perch, and pheasants. Another thing: When my ND friends come down to sunny Arizona to escape a hard winter for a couple of days of golf, I am gobsmacked at how much they drink! The joke goes around that excessive alcohol consumption is ND state sport.
This style of video is what I am most excited to see from your channel, Adam. Parsing an expert's vast depth of knowledge while bringing history into the mix is where, personally, I think both you and your content shines the brightest. There is a lot of magic in the mundane, I think, and pasta is one of those incredibly pervasive - and yet overlooked - aspects of our modern lives that is worthy of this level of consideration.
I'm a grain grader from Canada, and I loved the video. Durum is pretty incredible to see in a large pile. It looks like a big pile of amber gemstones. I will say though that wheat protein levels vary drastically. Weather, disease, fertilizer, and the particular strain of wheat all makes a difference. I generally tend to see higher proteins during years with lower yields. That would suggest to me that nitrogen levels in the soil are a big factor. Less grain growing in the field would mean each individual plant has better access to nitrogen and other nutrients. Perhaps the plant wants to increase the protein of the seed so that it might have a better chance of surviving passing through the digestive tract of some animal. A harder seed might survive and sprout where it has been deposited. We see proteins varying from 9% all the way up to 18%. At the grain elevator we usually blend that grain so that the protein level is approximately what the buyer is looking for. It's ultimately a case by case basis depending on who is buying and for what purpose.
Lol, those piles look a lot less incredible when something blew up and you have to shovel them. ;) Anyway, when I was a durum miller, my favourite thing to hear was "we're getting a shipment of Canadian wheat." We always had smooth sailing on wheat from Canada. Wheat from the Dakotas is all bran. :/
@@ErickC yeah.... shovelling a few tons of wheat by hand will certainly curb your enthusiasm lol the worst part is that you know each mess will never be the last one.
@@holaholafelipito yup latin -um to spanish -o is actually really common, works with a lot of things. even allium -> ajo can be accounted for with that and the also regular sound change from /ʎ/ (basically ly) to modern spanish j, as also seen in filius -> hijo
While semolina is naturally yellow, the color of dried pasta is driven more by the temperature of the drying process than the color of the semolina flour. The yellower the pasta, the higher the drying temperature and the shorter the drying time, which is typical of lower quality pasta. The premium and artisanal grades of dried pasta are lighter in color because they are dried more slowly at lower temperatures, which increases the production cost.
I would bet surface texture also plays a role in the precieved color. Fancy, bronze die, extruded pasta is rough surfaced which would reflect light in a muted, hazy, diffuse manner. Smooth pasta, extruded through Teflon dies, will likely have high reflection and even some subsurface reflection that will make a very yellow color.
At first, I saw the video was a wee bit over eleven minutes and was thinking of just fast forwarding. I watched the entire thing lol. Great video. Loved the scientific stuff. Thx.
here in libya and north africa in general we used semolina allot. we use it in so many different things like couscous and basbousa. we call it "semed" or "samed"
@@Craxin01 first of all i am glad to hear that your grandfather managed to leave it safely, the problem after gaddafi dearth was the *badawins* (people who live small villages and/or in the open dessert) they are tribe people which allot of them (not all!) don't know how to be civilized (they killed the american ambassador). for now things are mostly safe especially in big cities like tripoli i don't say the life is perfect but it's safe now less weapons and militias, prices are high but it's getting better, the electricity is very stable here at least in tripoli and that is good, we didn't have it like this since 2010. in general life is start to be better at least in the big cities in the north. thanks for asking if want to know something else let me know. have a great day
Adam, the reference to Ukraine was really well done. Also, this got me to finally do some more looking into bulgur which seems to be more of a staple food rather than something added for a purpose? Semolina and bulgur both get used a lot in Arabic cooking so, I wanted to nail down their usage cases.
💛 💙I had to run those tractors by a few times, it's very satisfying. It would be an interesting episode, explaining the difference between bulgur, couscous, and semolina. As I understand it, bulgur is whole grain durum, parboiled, dried, and cracked, while couscous is made of semolina and flour rolled into tiny balls.
Common wheat was a (natural) hybrid of some form of durum and a wild grain, _Aegilops speltoides_ , so the durum lineage is in fact older than that of common wheat!
Yes, I was kind of surprised he said it was probably a random mutation. There is a lot of studies about the origin of wheat, and even more so recently, that they managed to sequence its horribly long genome
@@javierantunez3937 it's clear that he didn't really research that part as he said probably. He was just speculating, as it doesn't really affect the main subject of the video.
You should look into flour standards around the world. As a Canadian baking overseas, I found out that one of the things that was causing my baking, especially bread, to be off was that Canadian all purpose flour has a much higher protein content than AP flour in places like the US. It would be a great science guide for your baking fans all around the world
But higher protein generally correlates with stronger gluten development which you want with bread. In any case, to a point, say, 11% protein and up it doesn’t matter for your bread baking. Because you should be adjusting your hydration for your particular flour.
@@frankfurter7260 Yes it does, but when you come from a country where the AP protein content is very high and move to a country where the AP protein content is lower and you're not aware of that, you'll suddenly find things not working out the same was as they did before. Not everyone is an expert baker is aware of those kinds of things. They follow recipes or use them as references and may not realize those kinds of differences exist and how to adjust for them. Picking a random all purpose US flour off amazon shows it at 10%, while Canadian AP flour is around 13.5%. 3.5% is a lot when baking.
Pro tip for anyone who consistently watches ragusea videos his ads are almost always one minute long +/-5 seconds so if you skip forward 55 seconds it should bring you right to the end of the ad
Nice! I personally use Vanced with ad skip integrated (great for when you play stuff while getting your hands dirty during cooking or smth) but skipping by hand is pretty easy when he's being as consistent as he is :D
@@autodidacticartisan hahahah I really did mean manual labor stuff but I did realise the.. Potential other meaning while typing out that comment :') And ye probably, most of those sponsored ads seem to be around that one minute, I see it at other youtubers too
Great to see ND in a video, seas of wheat in early fall. We used to chew a handful of wheat and if you chewed it long enough it would turn to gum. I would guess from all the protein. Took forever to get to that point though!
The texture might be from protein, but saliva also has amylase enzymes that turn starch into sugar, making grains taste sweet if you chew them for a long time.
I bought some angel hair pasta made from semolina wheat and it was the best pasta I ever had. Full of flavor and had some tooth to it no matter how much I boiled it. I get it on Amazon and Whole Foods, it's called Rummo and comes from Italy. Well worth the extra bucks.
I just figured out the appeal for me of Adams videos. He is the new version of Alton Brown. Informative science based food knowledge done without pretension. So good!
Why the fuck doesn't this channel have 50M subs? Only food channel you'll ever need, with the best descriptions, soothing voice, excelently scripted, sources, etc. Look no further, Adam's your go-to food guy from RUclips, you won't EVER be dissappointed!
You're incredible. You're a naturally exceptional communicator who happens to be interested in this kind of stuff. The actual professor who knows a million times more than you do pales in comparison as a communicator of ideas. Cooking is great, Adam. Keep it up by all means. But if you branch out into other fields you happen to also be interested in, I'm reasonably confident you'll retain the bulk of your audience. Just keep communicating well!
Here in Australia, what is generally sold as "semolina" is soft (white) wheat. The ingredient list doesn't specify what type of wheat is used, so you need to rely on the colour. To get durum wheat semolina you generally need to go to Italian or Indian grocery stores.
Nice. I didn't know that semolina was durum wheat specifically. I've always understood it to be equivalent to Grieß/manka, but they both mean "wheat meal" in general, it turns out.
In Germany it's usually specifically named when you buy it at the supermarket, it's either 'Hartweizengrieß' (hard wheat i.e. durum wheat Grieß = semolina) or 'Weichweizengrieß' (soft wheat i.e. common wheat Grieß). Grieß meaning a relatively coarser grind than flour. You generally use the common wheat Grieß for sweet recipes like porridge.
Thanks a ton for letting us know of this recipe. It would be amazing to see a pasta recipe by you using semolina flour. Thanks for all the science Mr. Ragusea. :)
i come here for food, not politics and no im not a "russian stooge", i simply don't support either side because of the amount of bias and propaganda coming from both sides. Glory to the people of Russia and Ukraine suffering from war
In North Africain region, we use traditionaly durum wheat to make traditional dishes ( Coucous, Chakhchoukha, Makrout...), I think it is because of the nature of the area (dry and hot) which causes that there is not much grass to feed the animals (cows and sheep) so less protein in the dish, and here comes the role of durum wheat to replace that lake of protein. thanks for your videos which are hard not to watch
Really would love you to continue diving into pasta. Please also make flavoured pasta videos (raw pasta made with additional ingredients apart from semolina, such as squid ink, or beetroot, etc.) I also can't wait for the eventual videos on noodles! 🍜 😀
Semolina porridge is my favorite food ever. It literally saved my life countless times in times when I wasn’t eating pretty much anything. And it still does! 💛 It’s great you’ve made a video on this seemingly unknown topic!
I made seitan with semolina flour and it was awesome. Even better than all purpose flour in yield. I can correlate between the whole wheat flour, all purpose flour and semolina flour in terms of protein percentage. In our region its between 10-11% protein in whole wheat, 11-12% in all purpose flour and 13% in semolina flour. Now i would try pizza base using semolina flour and see the result.
Adam, I LOVE the continuity between your videos. It really demonstrates how much you study for them. I bet you go into things researching for one video, only to come out with enough for 2 or 3. Will we be getting a “Pasta: wheat to tortellini” video?
In arabic we call it "Smiid" (long vowel) and there's 2 varieties I know off: coarse and fine. Both are used in a lot of desserts. But I'm embarrassed to just learn that Durum is a different Wheat species I always thought they just processed it differently lol
Hi! A few observations (none of these are critiques): * I understand that this is for sake of simplicity : in the description around 10:40 it kinda seems that we kinda obtained durum wheat from "normal" wheat through selection, specifically for making noodles (and this is for keeping the video simple, I understand), in reality the "common" wheat (triticum aestivum) is the one which comes from a kind of durum, through a totally random hybridization with some wild wheat. and this happened thousands years ago, long before we had the wonderful idea of making noodles out of wheat. Nevertheless the explanation was fun. * isn't the yellowish color of pasta much more related to the maillard reactions which occour during high temperature, fast drying? you can see for yourself that you tend to have much whiter pasta when it says "slowly dried". * I may be totally wrong, but... 10:50 isn't this common wheat and not durum wheat?
As far as the Maillard reaction question goes, no. I've used semolina flour and dried my own pasta without the use of any heating machines. I air-dried them over the course of 24 hours, and they were still vibrant yellow. That leads me to believe the color does in fact come from the carotenoids like Adam explained.
Semolina, I believe refers to the particular size of the ground grain. Pasta is made primarily from Durum wheat, that is true. You can get semolina from any wheat but bread wheats are ground to a finer particle size. Durum wheat semolina has a higher gluten strength which is better for pasta products.
like how they blend whiskey from different barrels for desired qualities, i wonder if they do the same with wheat, blending different varieties of wheat from different sources before milling to create the different kinds of flour that we see at the supermarket
There is a comment in the thread from someone who says they are a grain grader in Canada and they do just want you wonder. The different wheats are blended to achieve the right average components.
Wheat strains are divided by the number of chromosome sets they possess. Einkorn,, Emmer and Durum are diploid (as most living organisms are). Modern wheat is allohexaploid (having three pairs of chromosome sets, with one pair each taken from a different species of related wild grass).
I'm hoping this recent Pasta bender means we're gonna get a video on what exactly 'Al Dente' means. I know its supposed to be pasta with a little "bite" to it but from my experience, that description is so vague that what everyone considers 'Al Dente' is different. Like honestly, if I asked 30 people to cook me Al Dente pasta I would expect a wide spectrum of 'doneness' even though the word is seemingly trying to describe a specific degree of 'doneness'. Also, some restaurants will say "We have fresh pasta, cooked Al Dente" but then I've also heard "Al Dente pasta has to be dried, because the 'bite' comes from a little bit of dried pasta in the middle that's still uncooked."
That second definition means yucky undercooked pasta. That is why I tend to prefer fresh pastas whether semolina based or not. I want a firm bite, but not a yucky gummy or worse crunchy center.
Fun fact: the Germanic word for flour is, in fact, "meal." It means "ground corn." (As in, the cereal kernels.) See German Mehl and Dutch meel. The term "flour" is actually an offshoot of "flower," hence the pronunciation, and it refers to fine-ground meal of the highest quality. The term "flower" is very often applied (in various languages) to high-quality grades of some product or other.
Just a few other tidbits to add to your talking about wheat. There are 6 varieties of wheat grown in the US (Canada grows most of these as well but I don't think we grow them all); Hard Red Winter, Hard White, Soft Red Winter, Soft White, Hard Red Spring, and Durum. There's also a very close relative that's basically a combination of Hard Red and Durum that's known as Kamut; it's the grain they found in King Tut's tomb and makes phenomenal pasta. It can only legally be sold as an organic crop and is very popular in Europe but has a growing market in the US and Canada. Our neighbour is actually one of only 6? companies legally allowed to sell it in Canada; they've been exporting to Europe for decades. Also, here in the Western Canadian prairies durum has become the main variety of wheat grown due to how dry we typically are (we're in drought conditions 8 out of 10 years); we used to be known as the breadbasket of the world due to how much wheat we exported but now a better analogy would be the pasta bowl of the world due to the amount of Durum we export. Our farm grows Durum, Flax, and Canola; it's nice to see more recognition for Durum as most people don't even seem to know it exists.
And as a former durum miller I would like to express some appreciation for Canadian wheat growers - life was always a whole lot easier when I was milling wheat from Canada.
Alex The French Guy made a whole series on Dry Pasta, but failed to explain this. Well, not failed in the sense that he tried to and didn’t accomplish, but in that this explanation about how the starch plays in the dough made complete sense to me now. This video sort of complements Alex’s one. Both great producers! Thanks Adam for your food science videos. I watched your full sponsor message in return 😉
As someone who has made a lot of pasta including semolina based fresh pasta al uovo, I had considerable difficulty with the A.F.G series. No, pasta does NOT need to be dry to be successful in those dishes, but it must be semolina based. Addendum: I started making pasta in the late 80s, and I still do very frequently.
Hey Adam: matzo ball soup! You should try making some. Idk if it would make a good video, but it would certainly make a good meal for you and your family! You can buy frozen matzo balls and it’s the easiest thing to throw them into a pot with some broth for a while with maybe some carrots, celery, rice, and noodles. Thanks for all of the great videos over the years :)
@@kabukimanindahouse Not if it's done respectfully. (unless you're talking about 13-year-olds on Twitter who don't understand the difference between cultural exchange and cultural appropriation and accuse the former of being the latter)
There is more Duram and Wheat grown north in Manitoba Canada. "Manitoba" Flour, is made up mostly of Western Canadian Red Spring, which is more superior than Type 00 Wheat.
Pretty much all the standard flour that I can buy at the grocery store here in Canada is durum what. It's interesting to learn what makes our durum flour different from durum semolina
The hardness/ dryness of the pasta also allows you to make rigid shapes (shells, macaroni, ziti, etc) that you can't with normal flour pasta. Adam also forgot to mention one of the key advantages of semolina pasta: Shelf Life.
According to some pasta makers really yellow dried pasta is a sign of it being cheap low quality pasta. Pasta that is dried longer at a lower temperature ends up less yellow. Cheap low quality pasta also tends to be smoother.
That Dr's voice is definitely someone who has a doctorate in wheat
Reminded me of Mr. Mackey from southpark.
I immediately trust everything he says.
Reminded me of the teacher from Ferris Bueller!
Wheat wizard
My thoughts exactly. My first comparison was ben steins voice, plain, boring, but also a unique type of deepness
I'm a grain inspector in Illinois with roots back in Siouxland area of Iowa/South Dakota and I am ENTHRALLED to hear durum, hard red winter wheat, VITREOUS, protein and starch content, etc. in a video. Fun fact, one of the most commonly grown durum varieties in the US is called Desert Durum. It's grown in Arizona and the California Imperial Valley. It's good stuff. So good, it gets shipped to Italy to be ground into semolina to be used in pasta there, and here in the States!
THIS IS LITERALLY MY FIELD AND I LOVE IT, THANKS ADAM.
How do you get into a field such as this ? Can you study this in college ?
@@connorwutzke Only advice I can give is to talk your guidance councilor. They know what courses are needed to apply into the field you want to study in U.
This channel has made me aware of how many people spend their careers studying very specific foods. Pasta, bread, beer, blue food dye, etc. You never think about college faculty members researching butter, but they exist. It's like a secret society of food nerds.
Life goals tbh
There's a major food science and technology so yes people study all this
Entire industries are built on specific foods and the studying makes it possible. Sheltered a bit Nikki?
@@SpaceCadet4Jesus being unaware of incredibly specialized studies/sciences in a particular field in isn't a sign of being sheltered. That's a sign of being someone who isn't an expert in that field. 🤷🏾♀️
@@Nikki0417 Eh, sometime in your life you should've really *noticed* that everything in your world that isn't a plant, animal, or rock, was made by human hands and designed by human engineers. That sticks with you, and then it becomes trivially true that for everything you see there is at least one expert, and that some of those experts are friendly guys willing to answer questions.
I don't think you mentioned this, but "durum" is literally the Latin word for "hard" - the Romans who later became Italians likely named the species for the relevant quality of its grains
Yep. That is also its scientific name, _Triticum durum_ = hard wheat.
Durable wheat that lasts for a long duration
not sure if it's related, but a _durometer_ measures hardness of some materials
@@BakersTuts It certainly is!
@@BakersTuts It is, duro is a form of the word durum, (dative or ablative case) and meter comes from the Latin word meaning to measure. Roughly 70% of English vocabulary are either Latin words or a combination of 2 or more Latin words. Over 90% of English words with 4 or more syllables are Latin or Greek by way of Latin.
Adam consistently uploads the exact kind of videos that I am interested in. What a guy
Ok boomer
Well, his livelihood depends on that very concept.
So true! I feel the same :)
Adam's videos are like comfort food to me, every video is a gem that can be watched multiple times and enjoyed nontheless.
same! i watch a bunch of them over and over and passively absorb cooking skills lol
Me three. Sometimes I just pick one to fall asleep to, and then watch it again in the morning over breakfast
I feel the same way
ok good im glad im not the only one who watches these a bunch of times lol, i genuinely think that seeing so much of it so many times has helped me absorb info and become a much better cook
This is called bingeing guys.
I love science Mondays!
And I gotta say: The amount of research you must do, and work to translate it to us less savvy, is awe inspiring Adam. I often forget you're not quite a food scientist like some others like Alton Brown and co., Or at least it's not your formal background. It really hit me, for whatever reason, today listening to you discuss things. Keep it up!
loved when he repeatedly kept fixing his letter D in his semolina drawing of DURUM, I appreciate these little attention-to-detail light hearted moments in his videos 🙂
Most USA "semolina" is a fairly coarse grind. In Italy, there's also flour made from the same wheat that's ground more finely, closer to familiar bread flour. It's usually called "remilled" ("remacinata") to indicate that it's not the coarse little stuff we know of.
Right, Michael, Caputo semola rimacinata flour is what I sometimes use in conjunction with King Arthur AP flour to make a stronger pizza dough.
cool, what is it used for? also noodles?
So is it more of the coarse stuff that's used for couscous?
Which is what you want for your water based fresh pasta. Not the coarse stuff.
It's crazy how much the same food is different when you cross the ocean.
I really appreciate how your videos include interviews with academics and experts.
Even if this particular academic is giving me flashbacks to desperately trying to stay awake through monotone lectures in college XD
@@ChrisShipway The malt series was excellent though.
As a North Dakota resident I enjoy seeing my state represented in any way. North Dakota is often called the forgotten state. During the summer here the field are all yellow and golden brown. Farmers here indeed grow lots of durum wheat and lots of canola. Very beautiful
I'm from south dakota and it's true, you guys are inferior and forgotten. At least we have big mountain that most people don't even know is here.
Canola Rapeseed is poison. No human should consume that shit.
When I hear "North Dakota" I immediately think of walleyes, perch, and pheasants. Another thing: When my ND friends come down to sunny Arizona to escape a hard winter for a couple of days of golf, I am gobsmacked at how much they drink! The joke goes around that excessive alcohol consumption is ND state sport.
They'd probably be remembered more if they had a reason to not move, oof
This style of video is what I am most excited to see from your channel, Adam.
Parsing an expert's vast depth of knowledge while bringing history into the mix is where, personally, I think both you and your content shines the brightest. There is a lot of magic in the mundane, I think, and pasta is one of those incredibly pervasive - and yet overlooked - aspects of our modern lives that is worthy of this level of consideration.
I'm a grain grader from Canada, and I loved the video. Durum is pretty incredible to see in a large pile. It looks like a big pile of amber gemstones.
I will say though that wheat protein levels vary drastically. Weather, disease, fertilizer, and the particular strain of wheat all makes a difference. I generally tend to see higher proteins during years with lower yields. That would suggest to me that nitrogen levels in the soil are a big factor. Less grain growing in the field would mean each individual plant has better access to nitrogen and other nutrients. Perhaps the plant wants to increase the protein of the seed so that it might have a better chance of surviving passing through the digestive tract of some animal. A harder seed might survive and sprout where it has been deposited.
We see proteins varying from 9% all the way up to 18%. At the grain elevator we usually blend that grain so that the protein level is approximately what the buyer is looking for. It's ultimately a case by case basis depending on who is buying and for what purpose.
Lol, those piles look a lot less incredible when something blew up and you have to shovel them. ;)
Anyway, when I was a durum miller, my favourite thing to hear was "we're getting a shipment of Canadian wheat." We always had smooth sailing on wheat from Canada. Wheat from the Dakotas is all bran. :/
@@ErickC yeah.... shovelling a few tons of wheat by hand will certainly curb your enthusiasm lol the worst part is that you know each mess will never be the last one.
Very interesting!
Shocked it was never mentioned that durum means hard in Latin.
one might even say *durable*
@@rin_etoware_2989 my linguistics nerd brain is so happy now that i figured that out
In spanish "duro" means hard. This is mindblowing, I would never have associated that lol
@@holaholafelipito yup latin -um to spanish -o is actually really common, works with a lot of things. even allium -> ajo can be accounted for with that and the also regular sound change from /ʎ/ (basically ly) to modern spanish j, as also seen in filius -> hijo
While semolina is naturally yellow, the color of dried pasta is driven more by the temperature of the drying process than the color of the semolina flour. The yellower the pasta, the higher the drying temperature and the shorter the drying time, which is typical of lower quality pasta. The premium and artisanal grades of dried pasta are lighter in color because they are dried more slowly at lower temperatures, which increases the production cost.
I would bet surface texture also plays a role in the precieved color. Fancy, bronze die, extruded pasta is rough surfaced which would reflect light in a muted, hazy, diffuse manner. Smooth pasta, extruded through Teflon dies, will likely have high reflection and even some subsurface reflection that will make a very yellow color.
At first, I saw the video was a wee bit over eleven minutes and was thinking of just fast forwarding.
I watched the entire thing lol.
Great video. Loved the scientific stuff. Thx.
here in libya and north africa in general we used semolina allot. we use it in so many different things like couscous and basbousa. we call it "semed" or "samed"
Curious, what's it like in Libya now? My grandfather was in the U.S. Air Force there and left right before Ghedaffi took over.
@@Craxin01 Like in ukraine I guess.
@@Craxin01 first of all i am glad to hear that your grandfather managed to leave it safely, the problem after gaddafi dearth was the *badawins* (people who live small villages and/or in the open dessert) they are tribe people which allot of them (not all!) don't know how to be civilized (they killed the american ambassador).
for now things are mostly safe especially in big cities like tripoli i don't say the life is perfect but it's safe now less weapons and militias, prices are high but it's getting better, the electricity is very stable here at least in tripoli and that is good, we didn't have it like this since 2010. in general life is start to be better at least in the big cities in the north.
thanks for asking if want to know something else let me know.
have a great day
@@SirBojo4 lol we have russians troops too but less than ukraine
@@lukmanalghdamsi3189 You poor folks never had any "Stand with Libya" though.
I really love these videos where you go forth and put the effort to show the scientific breakdown of food. Keep them coming!
Adam, the reference to Ukraine was really well done. Also, this got me to finally do some more looking into bulgur which seems to be more of a staple food rather than something added for a purpose? Semolina and bulgur both get used a lot in Arabic cooking so, I wanted to nail down their usage cases.
darn those Ukrainian farmers casually sinking a warship or two.
💛 💙I had to run those tractors by a few times, it's very satisfying.
It would be an interesting episode, explaining the difference between bulgur, couscous, and semolina. As I understand it, bulgur is whole grain durum, parboiled, dried, and cracked, while couscous is made of semolina and flour rolled into tiny balls.
Because Ukraine is a major producer of soft wheat and durum wheat
Dr. Frank have a really awesome deep voice.
Never been this early to a ragusea vid, god-damn, love how diligent you've been with the follow-up videos lately!
i love how thorough your videos are. i can really see your journalism background shine through your work!
Common wheat was a (natural) hybrid of some form of durum and a wild grain, _Aegilops speltoides_ , so the durum lineage is in fact older than that of common wheat!
Yes, I was kind of surprised he said it was probably a random mutation. There is a lot of studies about the origin of wheat, and even more so recently, that they managed to sequence its horribly long genome
@@javierantunez3937 Wow! I'm now waiting for that 12-ploid strawberry 😆
@@javierantunez3937 it's clear that he didn't really research that part as he said probably. He was just speculating, as it doesn't really affect the main subject of the video.
You should look into flour standards around the world. As a Canadian baking overseas, I found out that one of the things that was causing my baking, especially bread, to be off was that Canadian all purpose flour has a much higher protein content than AP flour in places like the US. It would be a great science guide for your baking fans all around the world
But higher protein generally correlates with stronger gluten development which you want with bread. In any case, to a point, say, 11% protein and up it doesn’t matter for your bread baking. Because you should be adjusting your hydration for your particular flour.
@@frankfurter7260 Yes it does, but when you come from a country where the AP protein content is very high and move to a country where the AP protein content is lower and you're not aware of that, you'll suddenly find things not working out the same was as they did before. Not everyone is an expert baker is aware of those kinds of things. They follow recipes or use them as references and may not realize those kinds of differences exist and how to adjust for them. Picking a random all purpose US flour off amazon shows it at 10%, while Canadian AP flour is around 13.5%. 3.5% is a lot when baking.
Ol' Vinegar Leg does it again. Brilliant exposition, ace content, good science, snappy delivery, you don't even mind the sponsor shoutouts.
Pro tip for anyone who consistently watches ragusea videos his ads are almost always one minute long +/-5 seconds so if you skip forward 55 seconds it should bring you right to the end of the ad
Nice! I personally use Vanced with ad skip integrated (great for when you play stuff while getting your hands dirty during cooking or smth) but skipping by hand is pretty easy when he's being as consistent as he is :D
@@Avi2Nyan "or something" **wink wink**
Yeah my guess its in his contract that the ad has to be at least one minute long... Or something
@@autodidacticartisan hahahah I really did mean manual labor stuff but I did realise the.. Potential other meaning while typing out that comment :')
And ye probably, most of those sponsored ads seem to be around that one minute, I see it at other youtubers too
Great to see ND in a video, seas of wheat in early fall.
We used to chew a handful of wheat and if you chewed it long enough it would turn to gum. I would guess from all the protein. Took forever to get to that point though!
Amber waves of grain?
Fields of waving green in springtime, golden yellow in the fall.
How the great high arching heaven looks and laughs upon it all.
@@BusinessMuscles That is so freaking cool!
We did that too
The texture might be from protein, but saliva also has amylase enzymes that turn starch into sugar, making grains taste sweet if you chew them for a long time.
I love Adam's little graphics and how much use he gets out of them
I bought some angel hair pasta made from semolina wheat and it was the best pasta I ever had. Full of flavor and had some tooth to it no matter how much I boiled it. I get it on Amazon and Whole Foods, it's called Rummo and comes from Italy. Well worth the extra bucks.
I just figured out the appeal for me of Adams videos. He is the new version of Alton Brown. Informative science based food knowledge done without pretension. So good!
you always do the best sponsorship segues
Hi from Ukraine. Thank you so much. Very informative. I am searching information about making semolina at small farm .
Why the fuck doesn't this channel have 50M subs? Only food channel you'll ever need, with the best descriptions, soothing voice, excelently scripted, sources, etc. Look no further, Adam's your go-to food guy from RUclips, you won't EVER be dissappointed!
I love this channel, it feels like the internet version of Good Eats with Alton Brown.
That professor was someone I think students would like to have.
Starch damage's biggest hit is "angel hair pasta of death"
🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼
A basic question with a much more interesting answer to questions I didn’t know I had
Ay Bob's Red Mill. Love them. High quality and it's an independant employee owned company. Will always support them and King Arthur as much as I can.
If you asked me before this video to describe a wheat scholar from North Dakota, it would be that guy exactly
You're incredible. You're a naturally exceptional communicator who happens to be interested in this kind of stuff. The actual professor who knows a million times more than you do pales in comparison as a communicator of ideas.
Cooking is great, Adam. Keep it up by all means. But if you branch out into other fields you happen to also be interested in, I'm reasonably confident you'll retain the bulk of your audience. Just keep communicating well!
0:00 I can't believe Adam resisted the urge to do the reverse "sweep the flour into the letters" thing
6:47 NEVER MIND LOL
Here in Australia, what is generally sold as "semolina" is soft (white) wheat. The ingredient list doesn't specify what type of wheat is used, so you need to rely on the colour. To get durum wheat semolina you generally need to go to Italian or Indian grocery stores.
I recently started to make pasta at home and these last videos were so much fun and informative. Great content, Adam. Congrats!
Egg or eggless? My last few have been egg pastas with the flour split evenly between bread flour and semolina.
@@christopheroliver148 Egg, ratio of 70/30 being 00 flour/semolina respectively. But now I'm really looking forward to try full semolina
Nice. I didn't know that semolina was durum wheat specifically. I've always understood it to be equivalent to Grieß/manka, but they both mean "wheat meal" in general, it turns out.
In Germany it's usually specifically named when you buy it at the supermarket, it's either 'Hartweizengrieß' (hard wheat i.e. durum wheat Grieß = semolina) or 'Weichweizengrieß' (soft wheat i.e. common wheat Grieß). Grieß meaning a relatively coarser grind than flour. You generally use the common wheat Grieß for sweet recipes like porridge.
it isn't here in india. here it's called rava but the english name would be semolina
I love his scientific videos especially the ones relating to cereals
I thought he re-uploaded the other pasta video for a few seconds. But they just have similar thumbnails
I can see a lot of poeple skipping over this video for that exact reason
I thought it was just me looool
@@fatsloth9209 My exact thought as well. It might not be a bad idea to change it.
@@fatsloth9209 yeaaaa
It's basically the part 2 of that video
Thanks a ton for letting us know of this recipe. It would be amazing to see a pasta recipe by you using semolina flour.
Thanks for all the science Mr. Ragusea. :)
I love your recipe videos but videos like this are the reason I keep coming back.
1:00 this explains why this stuff is called "hartweizengrieß" in german which means something along the lines of "hard wheat semolina/farina"
Well, "durum" literally means hard in Latin! It's called hard wheat also in Italian, the other being soft wheat.
That unexpected shade thrown at Russian tanks in the middle of the video was very welcome. Thank you
i come here for food, not politics and no im not a "russian stooge", i simply don't support either side because of the amount of bias and propaganda coming from both sides. Glory to the people of Russia and Ukraine suffering from war
Keep up the great work on research of cooking
The literal dozens of us living in ND cheering for the mention
I laughed way too hard at this 🤣
In North Africain region, we use traditionaly durum wheat to make traditional dishes ( Coucous, Chakhchoukha, Makrout...), I think it is because of the nature of the area (dry and hot) which causes that there is not much grass to feed the animals (cows and sheep) so less protein in the dish, and here comes the role of durum wheat to replace that lake of protein. thanks for your videos which are hard not to watch
Really would love you to continue diving into pasta. Please also make flavoured pasta videos (raw pasta made with additional ingredients apart from semolina, such as squid ink, or beetroot, etc.)
I also can't wait for the eventual videos on noodles! 🍜 😀
Semolina porridge is my favorite food ever. It literally saved my life countless times in times when I wasn’t eating pretty much anything. And it still does! 💛 It’s great you’ve made a video on this seemingly unknown topic!
I made seitan with semolina flour and it was awesome. Even better than all purpose flour in yield. I can correlate between the whole wheat flour, all purpose flour and semolina flour in terms of protein percentage. In our region its between 10-11% protein in whole wheat, 11-12% in all purpose flour and 13% in semolina flour. Now i would try pizza base using semolina flour and see the result.
As a huge pasta lover this was just so delightful!!
If Ragusea makes a "Starch Damage" band shirt, I would 100 percent buy one.
If he made it an actual band, I would buy their album.
Nice. I haven’t made pasta since I stopped eating egg so it’s really nice to know I can pick it back up with just a change in flour.
Adam, I LOVE the continuity between your videos. It really demonstrates how much you study for them. I bet you go into things researching for one video, only to come out with enough for 2 or 3. Will we be getting a “Pasta: wheat to tortellini” video?
This is amazing! I just started trying to make my own pasta recently and this helps explain a fair amount of what's going on
Best video I've watched for a while. So much information, perfectly presented. Keep 'em coming.
In arabic we call it "Smiid" (long vowel) and there's 2 varieties I know off: coarse and fine. Both are used in a lot of desserts. But I'm embarrassed to just learn that Durum is a different Wheat species I always thought they just processed it differently lol
I just learned that is made of wheat. I thought it was made of other stuff. I don't think I knew that smid and semolina were the same thing either.
There's also a medium variety
Actually a cool sponsor, thanks!
Hi! A few observations (none of these are critiques):
* I understand that this is for sake of simplicity : in the description around 10:40 it kinda seems that we kinda obtained durum wheat from "normal" wheat through selection, specifically for making noodles (and this is for keeping the video simple, I understand), in reality the "common" wheat (triticum aestivum) is the one which comes from a kind of durum, through a totally random hybridization with some wild wheat. and this happened thousands years ago, long before we had the wonderful idea of making noodles out of wheat. Nevertheless the explanation was fun.
* isn't the yellowish color of pasta much more related to the maillard reactions which occour during high temperature, fast drying? you can see for yourself that you tend to have much whiter pasta when it says "slowly dried".
* I may be totally wrong, but... 10:50 isn't this common wheat and not durum wheat?
As far as the Maillard reaction question goes, no. I've used semolina flour and dried my own pasta without the use of any heating machines. I air-dried them over the course of 24 hours, and they were still vibrant yellow. That leads me to believe the color does in fact come from the carotenoids like Adam explained.
Semolina, I believe refers to the particular size of the ground grain.
Pasta is made primarily from Durum wheat, that is true.
You can get semolina from any wheat but bread wheats are ground to a finer particle size.
Durum wheat semolina has a higher gluten strength which is better for pasta products.
Next season's John Deere catalogue is going to have some amazing testimonials and promotional photos/videos for sure.
@Wikipedia, durum is the species of wheat, semolina is the (coarse, 'middling') milling of the wheat, except when it's not, because language.
In here we use semolina to make a sweet porridge, basically everyone's favourite porridge
Also here in Sweden. It's delicious.
This was way better than the videos that promise sound sleep. Thank you professor. 😴😴
Just found this account today and already loving the it! Amazing video and production!
This seemed like a boring topic, but is one of the most interesting I've watched so far.
like how they blend whiskey from different barrels for desired qualities, i wonder if they do the same with wheat, blending different varieties of wheat from different sources before milling to create the different kinds of flour that we see at the supermarket
There is a comment in the thread from someone who says they are a grain grader in Canada and they do just want you wonder. The different wheats are blended to achieve the right average components.
All the wheat that is grown in Yuma, Arizona, which is lots, is durum. This wheat is shipped to Italy to be made into pasta.
Wheat strains are divided by the number of chromosome sets they possess. Einkorn,, Emmer and Durum are diploid (as most living organisms are). Modern wheat is allohexaploid (having three pairs of chromosome sets, with one pair each taken from a different species of related wild grass).
So good!! I have heard of Durum and Semolina and was not sure. But this video has helped
Also, semolina is great as pudding. Semolina pudding aka Grießbrei in german was one of my favorite "desserts" as kid, and still is up there.
I really love videos like this because I always do better with my cooking when I learn the science behind it. :D
4:47 as ww2 era Germans would call it, that just a tractor pulling a tractor.
Upvoted for pasta and Ukrainian tractors
@@JoeAuerbach the allies: whatchu got there
H*tler: a tractor, and definitely not a panzer
Hoped you would have also talked about semola rimacinata or double ground semolina that Italians use alot in pizza.
I go to NDSU!!! It’s so cool to see someone from our campus on one of these videos
I love that we love noodles so much we made a species for it.
I'm hoping this recent Pasta bender means we're gonna get a video on what exactly 'Al Dente' means. I know its supposed to be pasta with a little "bite" to it but from my experience, that description is so vague that what everyone considers 'Al Dente' is different. Like honestly, if I asked 30 people to cook me Al Dente pasta I would expect a wide spectrum of 'doneness' even though the word is seemingly trying to describe a specific degree of 'doneness'. Also, some restaurants will say "We have fresh pasta, cooked Al Dente" but then I've also heard "Al Dente pasta has to be dried, because the 'bite' comes from a little bit of dried pasta in the middle that's still uncooked."
That second definition means yucky undercooked pasta. That is why I tend to prefer fresh pastas whether semolina based or not. I want a firm bite, but not a yucky gummy or worse crunchy center.
Fun fact: the Germanic word for flour is, in fact, "meal." It means "ground corn." (As in, the cereal kernels.) See German Mehl and Dutch meel. The term "flour" is actually an offshoot of "flower," hence the pronunciation, and it refers to fine-ground meal of the highest quality. The term "flower" is very often applied (in various languages) to high-quality grades of some product or other.
Just a few other tidbits to add to your talking about wheat. There are 6 varieties of wheat grown in the US (Canada grows most of these as well but I don't think we grow them all); Hard Red Winter, Hard White, Soft Red Winter, Soft White, Hard Red Spring, and Durum. There's also a very close relative that's basically a combination of Hard Red and Durum that's known as Kamut; it's the grain they found in King Tut's tomb and makes phenomenal pasta. It can only legally be sold as an organic crop and is very popular in Europe but has a growing market in the US and Canada. Our neighbour is actually one of only 6? companies legally allowed to sell it in Canada; they've been exporting to Europe for decades. Also, here in the Western Canadian prairies durum has become the main variety of wheat grown due to how dry we typically are (we're in drought conditions 8 out of 10 years); we used to be known as the breadbasket of the world due to how much wheat we exported but now a better analogy would be the pasta bowl of the world due to the amount of Durum we export. Our farm grows Durum, Flax, and Canola; it's nice to see more recognition for Durum as most people don't even seem to know it exists.
And as a former durum miller I would like to express some appreciation for Canadian wheat growers - life was always a whole lot easier when I was milling wheat from Canada.
Alex The French Guy made a whole series on Dry Pasta, but failed to explain this. Well, not failed in the sense that he tried to and didn’t accomplish, but in that this explanation about how the starch plays in the dough made complete sense to me now. This video sort of complements Alex’s one. Both great producers! Thanks Adam for your food science videos. I watched your full sponsor message in return 😉
As someone who has made a lot of pasta including semolina based fresh pasta al uovo, I had considerable difficulty with the A.F.G series. No, pasta does NOT need to be dry to be successful in those dishes, but it must be semolina based.
Addendum: I started making pasta in the late 80s, and I still do very frequently.
Hey Adam: matzo ball soup! You should try making some. Idk if it would make a good video, but it would certainly make a good meal for you and your family! You can buy frozen matzo balls and it’s the easiest thing to throw them into a pot with some broth for a while with maybe some carrots, celery, rice, and noodles. Thanks for all of the great videos over the years :)
someone would cry that it's cultural appropriation
@@kabukimanindahouse Not if it's done respectfully.
(unless you're talking about 13-year-olds on Twitter who don't understand the difference between cultural exchange and cultural appropriation and accuse the former of being the latter)
@@kabukimanindahouse that comment doesn't make sense because the vast majority of Adam's content is from/about other cultures
There is more Duram and Wheat grown north in Manitoba Canada. "Manitoba" Flour, is made up mostly of Western Canadian Red Spring, which is more superior than Type 00 Wheat.
Only Adam can make me, a coeliac, watch a video about wheat.
haha
Know thy enemy
@@AnonymousSam Oh, well done, you beat me to it!
Semolina texture is what I like in a pudding something that just meshes with my taste buds.
Wheatabix feels very similar on the tongue too.
Much much needed topic 🖤
Pretty much all the standard flour that I can buy at the grocery store here in Canada is durum what. It's interesting to learn what makes our durum flour different from durum semolina
The hardness/ dryness of the pasta also allows you to make rigid shapes (shells, macaroni, ziti, etc) that you can't with normal flour pasta. Adam also forgot to mention one of the key advantages of semolina pasta: Shelf Life.
According to some pasta makers really yellow dried pasta is a sign of it being cheap low quality pasta. Pasta that is dried longer at a lower temperature ends up less yellow. Cheap low quality pasta also tends to be smoother.
Wow those semolina granules look a little boxy, like they'd fit into a square space. . .
Oh never mind it's a shipstation sponsorship.
Interesting! I love learning things outside of my professional field. I only joined this channel recently, and I can't remember why.
Best science channel on YT! ;)
Starch Damage are the godfathers of Pastacore.
Dude, Adam has been hitting the weights! We're gonna have to call him Chadam now
Amazing, informative, and well-made video!