Bulgur (tur. bulgur), bulgor, burgol, burgul (Arabic), burgel, gurgur, pliguri (Greek: ΠλιγορΡι) — cereals made from boiled, dried and crushed wheat. It is widely used in the Middle East, the Caucasus, Southern Russia, the Balkans, northern India and Pakistan, where it is called dahlia.
It has been known since biblical times (mentioned in the Second Book of Kings 17:19[10] and the Book of Proverbs of Solomon 27:22 [by context], the Book of Ezekiel 44:30 and the Book of Nehemiah 10:37). The first written mention of Bulgur is found on cuneiform tablets from the time of Ashurnatsirapala II (9th century BC). The earliest archaeological find dates back to the 6th millennium BC.
Bulgur should not be confused with ordinary crushed wheat that has not undergone heat treatment, as well as with couscous.
In the countries where bulgur was imported, it is also called porridge (pilaf) from this cereal
roproduction
The production of bulgur has ancient traditions, is closely intertwined with the culture, way of life and calendar of rural residents. The sequence of operations when harvesting bulgur is known, unchangeable and associated with certain ritual plots, for example, singing songs or gifting children with boiled wheat.
With the urbanization of the main countries consuming bulgur, its production was mastered by food industry enterprises. Developing in competition with the mass rural producer, entrepreneurs have achieved good quality indicators, and in some cases surpassed the results of manual labor of peasants.
Traditional production
In the rural areas of the Middle East, the harvesting of bulgur is a traditional campaign that takes place in the summer, after the wheat harvest. For harvesting, each family leaves several hundredweight of newly harvested grain, which is very carefully cleaned and sorted.
The prepared grain is lowered into boiling water in large cauldrons and cooked with stirring. Readiness comes when all the wheat becomes soft. The cooked product is laid out on a clean, flat surface to dry. Such a surface can serve as a roof, a terrace or even a courtyard surface covered with straw mats. Drying takes place from one to three days with a daily double transshipment of wheat. As a result, the grains darken, shrink, and their surface becomes wrinkled. The humidity of the dried semi-finished product is 8-10%.
Then the boiled and dried wheat is subjected to peeling. To do this, it is wetted again and beaten off with wooden hammers in stone stupas. Another way of peeling is by using a stone wheel that a horse rolls around in a circle. There are also peeling machines, but the peasants in the villages are dissatisfied with the result of their work and believe that the taste of bulgur deteriorates during mechanical peeling.
After beating, the grain is put back to dry. As a result, the bran is separated from the kernels, and the nutty taste of bulgur is enhanced. Now it is enough to throw the processed wheat up (or drop it from a height) so that the husk separates under the influence of the wind.
The last stage of bulgur preparation comes - grinding. In rural farms, hand mills with stone millstones are traditionally used for this purpose. After grinding, the resulting product is divided into three fractions using sieves. The largest gets 60-70% of the initial product, the average — from 20 to 30%, and the thinnest - about 10%. Since different parts of wheat grain tend to form approximately equal particles during grinding, it turns out that particles of a similar composition, but different from particles of other fractions, mainly fall into different fractions of bulgur. As a result, three fractions of bulgur have different tastes and are used to prepare different dishes.
The thousand-year tradition of hand-made bulgur is gradually becoming a thing of the past. Although the long and laborious process has deep historical roots, the modern food industry is crowding backward farms. Now bulgur is produced on an industrial scale and sold in grocery departments of supermarkets.
Industrial production
Historically, the industrial production of bulgur (as well as many other products) at first completely repeated the classical process, reproduced annually on peasant farmsteads. The difference was only in the volume of the product. Wheat was cooked in large stationary boilers, then unloaded into hand wheelbarrows and taken to dry in the sun for three days. The production process was seasonal, for example, in California - from March to October. Naturally, the first change in technology was the purchase of a dryer, which made it possible to switch to year-round production.
Norman Kent gives two processes for obtaining a product that can be called "bulgur". Both are variants of each other - wheat grain is saturated with moisture for a long time (hours), and then steamed and dried. The difference between them is that in one case, the grain is moistened, gradually raising the temperature, and then treated with steam at a pressure of 2 atm. for 15 minutes. And in the second, the grain is moistened sequentially in three containers with different temperature-humidity conditions, and then treated with steam for 1.5 minutes at a pressure of 3 atm. on a separate continuous installation.
The resulting product is somehow dried, crushed, crushed and divided into fractions.
Kent notes that the first of these processes was developed in 1945 to dispose of surplus American wheat in order to use the resulting product in humanitarian missions. The history of the Peche family also claims that the Second World War significantly intensified the pace of production. Then came the improvement of technology. N. Kent dates the second trial to 1962. This coincides with the appearance of factories in the Middle East. So gradually the modern production of bulgur was created.
Types of Bulgur
On the example of the products of Turkish enterprises:
Whole bulgur (Başbaşı Bulgur) is a whole grain, peeled from the shells. Bulgur before the crushing stage. It is used for stuffing vegetables, in pilafs and soups.
Coarse-grained or large bulgur for pilaf (Iri Pilavlık Bulgur) is smaller than the Başbaşı Bulgur variety. Goes to pilaf or dolma.
Bulgur or bulgur for pilaf (Pilavlık Bulgur) is a common bulgur, used in pilafs and salads.
Small or Midyat bulgur for pilaf (Ince Pilavlık [Midyat] Bulgur— - in some areas of Turkey it is preferred. It can be used in soups, salads, pilaf and stuffed vegetables.
Bulgur for kufta (Köftelik Bulgur) is smaller than the Midyat bulgur. It is used for cooking kufta, salads, soups and various cereals.
Small bulgur for kufta or bulgur for cold kufta (Ince Köftelik [Çiğ Köftelik] Bulgur— is even smaller than a simple bulgur for kufta. It is used in the manufacture of cold kufta, desserts, soups and salads.
Dark bulgur for pilaf (Esmer Pilavlık Bulgur— is made from dark wheat varieties - "Esmer Bezostiye" or "Esmer Golia", which are a kind of ordinary yellow durum wheat with a colored grain shell. Logically speaking, this bulgur should not differ from ordinary varieties in anything but color. But traditionally it is not considered suitable for dietary nutrition.
Dark bulgur for kufta or fine dark bulgur for cold kufta (Esmer Köftelik Bulgur [Ince Esmer Çiğ Köftelik Bulgur]— is almost exclusively used for making cold kufta. Because thanks to the softness it is quickly prepared. But it can also be used in salads and soups.
Unpolished bulgur for pilaf (Kepekli Pilavlık Bulgur— is a cereal that has a part of the grain shell left in order to preserve vitamins and nutrients in it. Such bulgur can be used in dietary nutrition and for people who need to lose weight.
Unpolished bulgur for kufta (Kepekli Köftelik Bulgur— - like yellow bulgur varieties, can be used in salads, desserts and soups.
Other enterprises may divide their products into a different number of fractions. For example, the release of "half-chopped" Bulgur (Half Cuts Bulgur) is quite popular. There is also "⅔ Cuts Bulgur".
It should be additionally noted that the above are the types (or types) of bulgur, but not the varieties. The assortment of the enterprise may contain a significant number of supply options, for example, a mixture of bulgur with noodles for cooking the appropriate Turkish dish, or environmentally friendly (organic) bulgur
