The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns (turf) and grassland. Uses for graminoids include food (as grain, sprouted grain, shoots or rhizomes), drink (beer, whisky), pasture for livestock, thatching thatch, paper, fuel, clothing, insulation, construction, sports turf, basket weaving and many others.
Many grasses are short, but some grasses, like bamboo can grow very tall. Plants from the grass family can grow in many places, even if they are very cold or very dry. Several other plants that look similar but are not members of the grass family are also sometimes called grass; these include rushes, reeds, papyrus, and water chestnut.
Grasses are an important food for many animals, like deer, buffalo, cattle, mice, grasshoppers, caterpillars, and many other grazers. Unlike other plants, grasses grow from the bottom, so when animals eat grass they usually do not destroy the part that grows. Without grass, dirt can wash away into rivers (erosion).
Graminoids include some of the most versatile plant life-forms. They became widespread toward the end of the Cretaceous. Fossilized dinosaur dung (coprolites) have been found containing grass phytoliths (silica stones inside grass leaves). Grasses have adapted to conditions in lush rain forests, dry deserts, cold mountains and even intertidal habitats, and are now the most widespread plant type. Grass is a valuable source of food and energy for many animals.
Lawn grass is often planted on sports fields and in the area around a building. Sometimes chemicals and water is used to help lawns to grow.
People have used grasses for a long time. People eat parts of grasses. Corn, wheat, barley, oats, rice and millet are cereals, common grains whose seeds are used for food and to make alcohol such as beer.
Sugar comes from sugar cane, which is also a plant in the grass family. People have grown grasses as food for farm animals for about 4,000 years. People use bamboo to build houses, fences, furniture and other things. Grass plants can also be used as fuel, to cover roofs, and to weave baskets.
In English, the word "grass" appears in several phrases. For example:
Cacao tree
The cacao tree is a small tree originally grown in tropical South America. It only grows to 4 to 8 meters in height. Its seeds are called cocoa and are used to produce cocoa butter, chocolate drinks, and chocolate. Now the trees are grown in plantations in many tropical countries.
Cacao is planted on over 70000 square kilometres worldwide with 40% of production coming from Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Indonesia. Each country produces about 15%, with smaller amounts coming from Brazil, Nigeria, and Cameroon.
A tree begins to bear fruit when it is 4 or 5 years old. In one year, when mature, it may have 6,000 flowers, but only about 20 pods. About 300-600 seeds (10 pods) are required to produce around 1 kg of cocoa paste.
There are three main cultivar groups of cacao beans used to make cocoa and chocolate. The most prized, rare, and expensive is the Criollo Group, the cocoa bean used by the Maya. Only 10% of chocolate is made from the Criollo, which is less bitter and more aromatic than any other bean. The cacao bean in 80% of chocolate is made using beans of the Forastero Group. Forastero trees are significantly hardier than Criollo trees, resulting in cheaper cacao beans. Trinitario, a hybrid of Criollo and Forastero, is used in about 10% of chocolate. For details of processing, see cocoa.
Cacao beans were commonly used as currency in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. In some areas, such as Yucatán, they were still used in place of small coins as late as the 1840s.
Mahabad and Piranshahr
Mahabad & Piranshahr (, ); (Old name: سابلاخ: Sablakh, which may be of Mongolian origin) is a city in Iran. It is in the north-west of the country, in the region of Iranian Kurdistan and the province of West Azarbaijan. The city is south of Lake Urmia in a narrow valley 1,300 metres above sea level. It has about 162.434 people who live in the city. Mahabad is connected by road with Tabriz 300 km north, Urmia 150 km north and Arbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The city is one center and symbol of the Kurdish nationalism. The reason is because in 1945 it was the capital of the new founded people's Republic of Mahabad. The republic was conquered by Iranian forces in 16 December 1946. The president was Qazi Muhammad. The majority of the population is Kurdish. During the revolution in Iran, at 3 September 1979 the city was bombed and occupied by Iranian forces. After the death of Shivan Qaderi, a student and opposition activist in July 9 2005, the Kurdish population protested against the Iranian government.
Mahabad has also a branch of Islamic Azad University.
The region of Mukrian consists of Piranshahr and Mahabad.
Shivan Qaderi
Shivan Qaderi (or Sivan Ghaderi or Schuaneh Ghaderi; born 1979 or 1980; died 9 July 2005 in Mahabad) was a student and opposition activist in Iran. After his death in 2005, the Kurds protested and the Iranian government had to send more than 100,000 soldiers to this region. The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran reported, that about 50,000 people had protested after his death on the Chuwarchira Square. Humans Rights First say that, after he was shot, Iranian soldiers tied Ghaderi's body "to a military vehicle and dragged it through the city, obviously trying to frighten the population so that they would not organize any more protests."
Sauce
In cooking, a sauce is a liquid mixture added to another food for flavour. Sauces are not normally eaten by themselves; they add flavour, moisture, and visual appeal to another dish. Sauces are an essential element in cuisines all over the world.
The main sauces of French cuisine are built on a basis of roux, which is just flour and the liquid part of butter. Examples from Italian cuisine are the egg, cheese and ham sauce called "Carbonara"; the ground meat sauce called "bolognese", and the herbs and garlic sauce called "pesto".
Bottled sauces can be poured over food when it is served. An example would be the tomato-based sauce that is usually poured over spaghetti. Gravy is a brown sauce served with meat.
"Sauce" is a French word taken from the Latin "salsus", meaning "salted". Possibly the oldest sauce recorded is "garum", the fish sauce used by the Romans.
Sauces need a liquid component, but some sauces (for example, pico de gallo salsa or chutney) may contain more solid elements than liquid.
Sauces may be used for savoury dishes or for desserts. They can be prepared and served cold, like mayonnaise, prepared cold but served lukewarm like pesto, or can be cooked like bechamel and served warm or again cooked and served cold like apple sauce.
Some sauces are commercial products like Worcestershire sauce, HP sauce, soy sauce or ketchup. In French cuisine they are freshly prepared by the chef. Sauces for salads are called salad dressing. A cook who specializes in making sauces is a saucier.
Sauces in French cuisine date back to the Middle Ages. There were hundreds of sauces in the culinary repertoire, and were a major defining characteristic of French cooking of the 19th and 20th centuries, until nouvelle cuisine.
In the 19th century, the chef Antonin Carême classified sauces into four families, each of which was based on a mother sauce (Also called "grandes sauces"). Carême's four mother sauces were:
In the early 20th century, the chef Auguste Escoffier updated this classification to five mother sauces. They are:
A sauce which is based on one of the mother sauces is sometimes called a small sauce, minor sauce, or secondary sauce. Most sauces commonly used in classical cuisine are small sauces, or derivatives of one of the above-mentioned mother sauces.