| Many different types of food items are placed into this category that may be provided by being taken directly from a growing plant or may be a processed as a food item specifically for the purpose of being wrapped around food. Food Wraps include items such as tortillas or tortilla-like baked products, dough enclosures, leaves from plants, paper, foil, and several other types of wraps, such as one known as Yuba that are commonly used to hold various ingredients together for baking or eating the food.
Food Wraps made from dough are used to keep the contents enclosed and together as they bake and as they are consumed. In the simplest form, slices of bread are used as Food Wraps to keep the contents of sandwiches together. Wontons, Crab Rangoon, Egg Rolls, and Spring Rolls are common Asian foods baked in pastry or dough Wraps. Tortillas and crepes are much like a dough Wrap since they may be baked with the enclosed foods such as Enchiladas or they may be used after the preparation as a way to keep foods held securly together for eating. Although not always considered to be a true Food Wrap, a bread bowl is another example of a Wrap made from dough that is used to hold foods while they are being consumed and is an added item that can be consumed with the enclosed ingredients.
Food Wraps are also used to impart flavors from the Wrap into the foods being cooked, such as occurs when using banana leaves, bamboo leaves or other spieces of plant leaves to wrap around fish and poultry for cooking. The leaves are used to not only add a small amount of the leaf flavor but also to keep the food contents moist and juicy when finished cooking. Cooking with paper or foil Food Wraps is another common way to preserve the moisture and flavors within various foods as they cook. However, in many other instances the purpose of a wrap is to hold all contents together to blend flavors as well as to provide an edible ingredient and an enjoyable addition to method of prepartion when the food is finished being prepared. Yuba is a soy-based Food Wrap that is often used in Asian cooking but is not that common to traditional cooking. Soy milk is heated to provide a durable skin that is removed from the surface of the heated milk. It is then removed, dried and used as a Food Wrap to hold many different types of ingredients. |
