Staying healthy most of the time does not necessarily require living an expensive life. On the flip side, many people in rural areas that mostly feed on cheap, natural, but unprocessed foods or herbal products generally enjoy better health conditions than some folks in the urban areas.
In today's article, I will be taking my readers through the process of making a cheap, but a nutritious meal that is only popular among the people in the middle to the lower end of the income spectrum in my country - Nigeria. The food is made from grain starch and is popularly known as pap.
The grain starch is a soft, paste-like substance made from fermented maize, millet, and or guinea corn or a combination of any of the three elements. Among the Yoruba speaking tribe in Southwestern Nigeria, the food is popularly known as 'ogi', 'akamu', or 'eko'. There are different methods of preparing the grain starch depending largely on the constituents of the final product rather than the procedure. Below are the steps involved in the making of grain starch that is utilized in making pap:
Step 1: The first step in locally preparing grain starch is to get all the starting materials together. It can be maize (Zea mays)only pap, guinea (Sorghum vulgare)corn only, a combination of maize and guinea corn, or combination of maize, guinea corn, and millet (Pennisetum glaucum). Perhaps there are other forms of combination but the listed ones are the ones I know as far as my practical knowledge is concerned. The appearance of the final product depends largely on the starting materials.
The starting materials are gathered, picked to remove specks of dirt, washed multiple times, and then soaked in water for a minimum of three days. Some people use warm water to soak their materials in order to reduce the soaking period to like two days. The soaking leads to tendering of the grains, makes the active contents to be more readily available, and improves the organoleptic properties of the final product.
At the end of the second or third day, as the case may be, the water used for soaking is removed and the grains washed multiple times using clean water. The washing will remove any residual dirt as well as residence microbes that might have been acting on the mixture.
Step 2: The next thing to do is to grind the material. At this junction, additives such as ginger (Zingiber officinale), garlic (Allium sativum), or clove (Syzygium aromaticum) can be added to the marinated grains in order to improve the overall quality and shelf-life of the final product. The material is then wet-milled together to form a smooth paste.
Step 3: After grinding, the thick paste is diluted severally and the resulting mixture is sieved through a cheesecloth in order to extract the starch and separate the husk - the remains of the seed coats of the grains.
Step 4: After sieving, the filtrate which is a suspension of starch in water, the mixture is allowed to stand undisturbed for up to 24 hours. The starch settles down and the supernatant liquid at the top can be decanted off. The residue from the sieving process can be utilized in livestock feeds or simply discarded as necessary while the residue from the decantation process is properly stored and utilized in making pap when needed.
Preparation of pap
Preparing pap from semi-solid grain starch does not require many skills. It is as simple as just preparing a paste of the grain starch in a bowl and adding hot, boiling water while stirring continuously. An alternative method is to prepare a much-diluted paste of the grain starch in a bowl, placing it on a burner, and then stir continuously till thick, pudding-like substance results.
The second method of preparation can make the pap to turn solid when cold if the initial preparation is made too thick before being placed on a burner and allowed to overstay on the burner. Of course, the solid pap is food to some people as well.
Nutritional and health benefits of pap
Since it is made from grains, pap is quite rich in carbohydrates. It also contains essential vitamins such as vitamins A and C, pantothenic acid, riboflavin, thiamine, folic acid, and nutritional elements like potassium, chromium, selenium, zinc, phosphorous, magnesium, manganese, etc. Analysis of the food also revealed the abundance presence of essential amino acids such as leucine and glutamic acid.
Consuming pap has been reported to be a regulator of blood pressure due to its zero sodium and rich potassium content. It has also been found to lower the level of low-density lipoprotein in the blood of its consumers. Breastfeeding mothers benefit from consuming pap due to its ability to promote breastmilk secretion and supply the mother with strength.
Thank you for reading.