page_title: Buckwheat
section_title: Culinary use
hierarchical_section_title: Buckwheat / Culinary use
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Гречка и продукты из неё: гречневые хлопья быстрого приготовления, хлебцы из гречневой муки. English: Buckwheat and products from it: buckwheat flakes (fast cooking), crispbread made of buckwheat flour. Dansk: Boghvede og produkter fra det: Boghvede flager, knækbrød lavet af boghvede mel.
context_page_description: Buckwheat, or common buckwheat, is a plant cultivated for its grain-like seeds and as a cover crop. The name "buckwheat" is also used for a number of other species. A related and bitterer species, Fagopyrum tataricum, is a domesticated food plant raised in Asia. Despite the name, buckwheat is not related to wheat, as it is not a grass. Instead, buckwheat is related to sorrel, knotweed, and rhubarb. Buckwheat is referred to as a pseudocereal because its seeds' culinary use is the same as cereals', owing to their composition of complex carbohydrates.
context_section_description: The fruit is an achene, similar to sunflower seed, with a single seed inside a hard outer hull. The starchy endosperm is white and makes up most or all of buckwheat flour. The seed coat is green or tan, which darkens buckwheat flour. The hull is dark brown or black, and some may be included in buckwheat flour as dark specks. The dark flour is known as blé noir (black wheat) in French, along with the name sarrasin (saracen). The grain can be prepared by simple dehulling, milling into farina, to whole-grain flour or to white flour. The grain can be fractionated into starch, germ and hull for specialized uses.
  Buckwheat noodles have been eaten in Tibet and northern China for centuries, where the growing season is too short to raise wheat. A wooden press is used to press the dough into hot boiling water when making buckwheat noodles. Old presses found in Tibet and Shanxi share the same basic design features. The Japanese and Koreans may have learned the making of buckwheat noodles from them.
  Buckwheat noodles play a major role in the cuisines of Japan (soba) and Korea (naengmyeon, makguksu and memil guksu). Soba noodles are the subject of deep cultural importance in Japan. The difficulty of making noodles from flour with no gluten has resulted in a traditional art developed around their manufacture by hand.
  Noodles also appear in Italy, with pasta di grano saraceno in Apulia region of Southern Italy and pizzoccheri in the Valtellina region of Northern Italy.
  Buckwheat groats are commonly used in western Asia and eastern Europe. The porridge was common, and is often considered the definitive peasant dish. It is made from roasted groats that are cooked with broth to a texture similar to rice or bulgur. The dish was taken to America by Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish immigrants who called it kasha, and they mixed it with pasta or used it as a filling for cabbage rolls (stuffed cabbage), knishes, and blintzes; buckwheat prepared in this fashion is thus most commonly called kasha in America. Groats were the most widely used form of buckwheat worldwide during the 20th century, eaten primarily in Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland, called grechka in Ukrainian or Russian.
  Porridge was also traditionally made from farina,  Cream of buckwheat in the US and polenta taragna in Italy, or flour, called dhindo in Nepal.
  Buckwheat pancakes are eaten in several countries. They are known as buckwheat blinis in Russia, galettes bretonnes in France, ployes in Acadia, poffertjes in the Netherlands, boûketes in the Wallonia region of Belgium, kuttu ki puri in India and kachhyambain Nepal. Similar pancakes were a common food in American pioneer days. They are light and foamy. The buckwheat flour gives the pancakes an earthy, mildly mushroom-like taste.
  Yeasted patties called hrechanyky are made in Ukraine.
  A jelly called memilmuk in Korea is made from buckwheat starch
  Buckwheat is a permitted sustenance during fasting in several traditions. In India, on Hindu fasting days (Navaratri, Ekadashi, Janmashtami, Maha Shivaratri, etc.), fasting people in northern states of India eat foods made of buckwheat flour. Eating cereals such as wheat or rice is prohibited during such fasting days.  While strict Hindus do not even drink water during their fast, others give up cereals and salt and instead eat non-cereal foods such as buckwheat (kuttu). In the Russian Orthodox tradition, it is eaten on the St. Philip fast.
  Buckwheat honey is dark, strong and aromatic. Because it does not complement other honeys,  it is normally produced as a monofloral honey.
caption: Buckwheat (left), buckwheat flakes (fast cooking) (right), and crispbread made of buckwheat flour.
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D5200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2015:08:01 01:46:23", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "240", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "908", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1022", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6504", "EXIF ExposureTime": "3", "EXIF FNumber": "16", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:07:26 23:33:51", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:07:27 10:49:44", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "49/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "White fluorescent (WW 3200 - 3700K)", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "70", "EXIF SubSecTime": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "30", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5850", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3760", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "876", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "70", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}