durum semolina makes "bulgur" wheat? yes, according to wiki

[alkapal]

Look at this passage from wikipedia:

"Semolina made from durum wheat or other hard wheats [...] is usually prepared with the main dish, either boiled with water into a pasty substance, e.g. ... as the basis for dried products such as pasta (Italy) which is made from finely ground semolina (sometimes called semolina flour), couscous (North Africa), and bulgur (Turkey and the Levant)."

cited from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semolina

I was certain they are quite different.

Even wiki's entry on bulgur differs from the cited passage, right? "The key attributes of traditional bulgur production are that the grain is parboiled, dried (usually by spreading in the sun) and the bran is removed. Bulgur is often confused with cracked wheat, which is made from crushed wheat grains which have not been parboiled. Although traditionally de-branned, bulgur and cracked wheat products available in shops may or may not have had their bran removed. Thus there are whole-grain, high-fiber versions of each. Bulgur is most often found in Turkish, Middle Eastern, Indian and Mediterranean dishes. It has a light and nutty flavor."

does wiki's left hand ever read what its right had is writing? or....what am i missing in this situation with semolina vs. bulgur?

[johnb]

If you think Wikipedia has bad information, you should check out a web site called Chowhound. Oops, I guess you already knew about that.

As to semolina and bulgar, yes they both can and are made from durum wheat. I believe the OP reflects a common confusion, i.e. that semolina, and maybe bulgar too, are types of wheat. That's not the case. They both are methods of processing wheat. "Molina" and similar words mean "mill" in various romance languages including Italian. Se is (I think) "semi." So semolina is semi-milled wheat, almost always from durum wheat, milled somewhere between a meal and a flour. Bulgar is a very rough processed form of wheat, which can and probably usually is durum wheat but perhaps other types sometimes too???. Perhaps the word derives from or is related somehow to Bulgaria, which is roughly in the geographical area where bulgar is common, or the Bulgar people. Who knows--Turkey's are called that because at the time they became introduced to France they appeared exotic, and Turkey was thought to be an exotic place. Word derivations are strange sometimes.

Coming back to Wikipedia, this is a bit OT, but tho many say the info isn't reliable, I've also seen comparisons done between Wikipedia and standard encyclopedias, and Wiki comes out well. You can always go to the references and external links cited in the articles if you want "reliable" sources. Personally, I think a lot of the opposition to Wikipedia comes from academics who fear the growth of a new form of competition in their little world. That said, I also think the wording of the "semolina" article originally cited by alkapal is bad or at least unfortunate, and a perfect opportunity for someone to go in there and fix it. That's the "wiki" part of it after all!

[alkapal]

johnb, no, i wasn't confused. my point was that wiki's entry on semolina wrongly listed bulgur as a product *of" semolina....

as to turkeys, i was unaware that the french named our native american bird.

to me, this origin of the name *sounds* credible: "To set the record straight: The English word is a shortening of "Turkey-cock" and "Turkey-hen," which were originally the names of the guinea fowl (so called because the guinea fowl was sometimes imported into Europe through Turkey).

Because people misidentified the turkey with the guinea fowl or mistakenly considered it to be a species of that bird, these English names came to designate the turkey.

Furthermore, the word "Turkey-cock" is not attested until 1541, that is, almost a half-century after Columbus's voyages. "Turkey-hen and "turkey" are not attested until even later."

citation and credit: letter to nyt editor by david gold http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE1D8153DF931A35752C0A965958260

and an alternative, and equally plausible story (perfect for those thanksgiving cocktail party chats...) http://www.infoplease.com/spot/tgturkeyfacts.html

this list of names for wild turkey is amusing....
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage...

only on chow can we go from semolina to etymological origins for the name of the turkey, the bird preferred by benjamin franklin to be our national bird symbol ;-).

[Infomaniac]

The idea of Wikipedia, from what I understand is to encourage the public to "collaboratively" write articles that are saved in the Wikipedia "encyclopedia" database, which is accessible by anyone. The information can also be edited, added to or changed by anyone. Maybe you should try and set the record straight.

Wikipedia should really not be used as a reference source. There is no independent and credible verification of the information they are making available to the public.

[alkapal]

i think the wiki entries' accuracy are really generally pretty good. but, some subject areas are definitely better than others in that respect. though, there are slip-ups, like this one in op. usu, i've researched the topic in other sources, too.

[Karl S]

Your instinct is correct. Bulgur is not like pasta, semolina meal or couscous.

My understanding is that only a small portion of the bran (generally 5%) is lost in the cracking of the parboiled bulgur - and that is why it's not quite whole grain but basically whole grain.

In any event bulgur is my preferred basic grain - easier than white rice (a whole lot easire than brown rice) and more flavor and fiber than both white or brown rice, and it can be used much more palatably in cool dishes than rice.

[tmso]

I'm not sure if alkapal's instinct is correct here, but Wikipedia is (shock!) full of shit or at least misleading here. Maybe someone somewhere makes something called a name similar to "bulgur" from semolina (wiki translation would be "often X is made from Y").

Bulgur is whole grains of hard wheat (the grain that's called grano duro in Italian), boiled, then dried, then roughly ground/broken. Semolina (semoule in French) is a rough grind of a grain, usually wheat (hard but sometimes soft) with the bran removed. Grits or rough polenta can be made from corn semolina, for example.

What's confusing you is probably this: when someone says "semolina" in US English, what they probably mean is not "semolina" but rather "the grain in semolina di grano duro". Grano duro is hard wheat, grano tenero is soft wheat; both can be made into pasta, semolina, flour, etc.

[alkapal]

tmso, you're saying semolina is made sometimes with grains other than wheat, and thus "semolina" is a style of preparing a grain? grits from corn semolina? is that the stone-ground grits you're referring to? but corn doesn't have bran....
i'm not trying to be a smarty pie, just understand. ;-)

also known as "jimmy crack corn, and i don't care...."

[tmso]

Yep, you got it right. It's a way of preparing grain, mostly used in reference to hard wheat, but it could also be barley, corn, whatever. And yeah, I meant rough, stone-ground grits. As for the lack of bran on corn ... no bran, no bran to remove, I guess. "Semoule de maïs" is used more in French than "semolina di mais" is in Italian, but you find both.

And as for our lovely mongrel English language ... well, I'd refer to "corn semolina" or "barley semolina" but maybe not in the context of a bunch of anglos, because they might misunderstand what I meant. So, uh, take from that what you will :-)

[alkapal]

thanks tmso!