February 23, 2024 - 9:33am
Flour terminology - peeled and wallpaper
What exactly do these terms refer to? I see them used most often in recipes from Eastern Europe, Russia, etc. Best I can tell, they appear to be an intermediate grade (less-than-whole-grain but not-highly-refined).
Are they synonymous?
What are the US equivalent(s)?
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These terms stumped me initially when I saw them, but @mariana and @IlyaFlyamer came to the rescue. These terms come up every few months to a year; it would be helpful if we had a separate Russian-English glossary.
Here are the equivalents:
Hope that helps!
So I guess I won't be peeling the backing off of the wallpaper and sowing it around the kitchen walls...
The cumin = caraway thing... I remember seeing cumin as a rye bread spice and wondered if it was true... wasn't brave enuf to try it though!
Thanks! :)
Although, some of the high% rye doughs I've worked with could double as wallpaper paste! But the rye tastes better! 😋
You may also come across "tea leaves" and "fermented tea leaves" in recipes. @mariana explained this in a post that word for scalds had some similarity to Russian tea.
It didn't sound particularly appetizing, so I walked on by...
Same word! заварка / zavarka - basically, it just means that something is steeped in boiling water. Most typically, indeed it means concentrated tea, which is than diluted with hot water to drinking strength (a traditional was of preparing tea in Russia). But since a scald is prepared the same way (pour boiling water over the flour, mix and let it sit) - the word is the same.
It's always interesting to know how these things come about!
Good point re cumin, I also got confused with the translation ones early on in my baking journey... Indeed, it is often mistranslated as cumin, but in rye bread (at least in Eastern Europe...) in reality it would always be caraway.
I feel like this time there was a discussion of these terms just a few weeks ago somewhere here :)
Yup! I think you're right. The online translation of Russian baking terminology continues to confound bakers newly venturing down that path.
I wish the auto-translators could improve for for these terms. I see it a little bit with German, too.