Aleuromancy is the use of flour for divination. [1] The word comes from the Greek aleuron, meaning flour, and manteia, meaning divination. [1]
Aleuromancy is the use of flour for divination. [1] The word comes from the Greek aleuron, meaning flour, and manteia, meaning divination. [1]
Divination with flour is attested in cuneiform tablets from the 2nd millennium BCE. [2] Flour was poured out in small heaps and the interpretation was based on the observation of their shapes and orientation.
In its original form, slips of paper containing words of warning would be baked inside of cakes or cookies, which would then be distributed to those wishing their fortunes to be told. Similarly, the Greeks would bake slips of paper with sentences on them inside of balls of flour, mix the balls nine times, and distribute them. [3] Modern fortune cookies are a variant on these forms of divination. [3]
Another form of aleuromancy consisted of interpreting patterns of flour left in a bowl after a flour and water slurry had been mixed in it and poured away.
A cookie or biscuit is a baked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat, and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, or nuts.
Matzah, matzo, or maẓẓah is an unleavened flatbread that is part of Jewish cuisine and forms an integral element of the Passover festival, during which chametz is forbidden.
A fortune cookie is a crisp and sugary cookie wafer made from flour, sugar, vanilla, and sesame seed oil with a piece of paper inside, a "fortune", an aphorism, or a vague prophecy. The message inside may also include a Chinese phrase with translation and/or a list of lucky numbers used by some as lottery numbers. Fortune cookies are often served as a dessert in Chinese restaurants in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries, but they are not Chinese in origin. The exact origin of fortune cookies is unclear, though various immigrant groups in California claim to have popularized them in the early 20th century. They most likely originated from cookies made by Japanese immigrants to the United States in the late 19th or early 20th century. The Japanese version did not have the Chinese lucky numbers and were eaten with tea.
Baking is a method of preparing food that uses dry heat, typically in an oven, but can also be done in hot ashes, or on hot stones. The most common baked item is bread, but many other types of foods can be baked. Heat is gradually transferred "from the surface of cakes, cookies, and pieces of bread to their center, typically conducted at elevated temperatures surpassing 300°F. Dry heat cooking imparts a distinctive richness to foods through the processes of caramelization and surface browning. As heat travels through, it transforms batters and doughs into baked goods and more with a firm dry crust and a softer center. Baking can be combined with grilling to produce a hybrid barbecue variant by using both methods simultaneously, or one after the other. Baking is related to barbecuing because the concept of the masonry oven is similar to that of a smoke pit.
Fortune telling is the unproven spiritual practice of predicting information about a person's life. The scope of fortune telling is in principle identical with the practice of divination. The difference is that divination is the term used for predictions considered part of a religious ritual, invoking deities or spirits, while the term fortune telling implies a less serious or formal setting, even one of popular culture, where belief in occult workings behind the prediction is less prominent than the concept of suggestion, spiritual or practical advisory or affirmation.
A biscuit, in many English-speaking countries, including Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa but not Canada or the US, is a flour-based baked and shaped food item. Biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be savoury, similar to crackers. Types of biscuit include biscotti, sandwich biscuits, digestive biscuits, ginger biscuits, shortbread biscuits, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate-coated marshmallow treats, Anzac biscuits, and speculaas.
Gingerbread refers to a broad category of baked goods, typically flavored with ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon and sweetened with honey, sugar, or molasses. Gingerbread foods vary, ranging from a moist loaf cake to forms nearly as crisp as a ginger snap.
A rusk is a hard, dry biscuit or a twice-baked bread. It is sometimes used as a teether for babies. In some cultures, rusk is made of cake, rather than bread: this is sometimes referred to as cake rusk. In the UK, the name also refers to a wheat-based food additive.
Biscotti are Italian almond biscuits originating in the city of Prato, in Tuscany. They are twice-baked, oblong-shaped, dry, and crunchy. In Italy, they are known as cantucci, biscotti di Prato or biscotti etruschi and may be dipped in a drink, traditionally Vin Santo. Smaller biscotti may be known as biscottini or cantuccini. In Italian, the word biscotti encompasses all kinds of biscuits or cookies.
Cookie dough is an uncooked blend of cookie ingredients. While cookie dough is normally intended to be baked into individual cookies before eating, edible cookie dough is made to be eaten as is, and usually is made without eggs to make it safer for human consumption.
Banitsa, also transliterated as banica and banitza, is a traditional pastry made in Bulgaria. It is also made in Budjak, where it is known as milina by Ukrainian Bulgarians; North Macedonia; and southeastern Serbia. In southeastern Serbia, it may also be known as gibanica. Banitsa is prepared by layering a mixture of whisked eggs, plain yogurt, and pieces of white brined cheese between filo pastry and then baking it in an oven.
Methods of divination can be found around the world, and many cultures practice the same methods under different names. During the Middle Ages, scholars coined terms for many of these methods—some of which had hitherto been unnamed—in Medieval Latin, very often utilizing the suffix -mantia when the art seemed more mystical and the suffix -scopia when the art seemed more scientific. Names like drimimantia, nigromantia, and horoscopia arose, along with other pseudosciences such as phrenology and physiognomy.
Kue is an Indonesian bite-sized snack or dessert food. Kue is a fairly broad term in Indonesian to describe a wide variety of snacks including cakes, cookies, fritters, pies, scones, and patisserie. Kue are made from a variety of ingredients in various forms; some are steamed, fried or baked. They are popular snacks in Indonesia, which has the largest variety of kue. Because of the countries' historical colonial ties, Koeé (kue) is also popular in the Netherlands.
An oliebol is a Dutch beignet, doughnut or fried dough that is traditionally eaten on New Year's Eve. People often eat it with raisins baked inside and with powdered sugar on top. Another variation is made with apple inside instead of raisins. There are similar foods all around the world, for example Samoan Panikeke, eaten mostly with jam or butter on top.
In Vietnamese, the term bánh translates loosely as "cake" or "bread", but refers to a wide variety of prepared foods that can easily be eaten by hands or chopsticks. With the addition of qualifying adjectives, bánh refers to a wide variety of sweet or savory, distinct cakes, buns, pastries, sandwiches, and other food items, which may be cooked by steaming, baking, frying, deep-frying, or boiling. Foods made from wheat flour or rice flour are generally called bánh, but the term may also refer to certain varieties of noodle and fish cake dishes, such as bánh canh and bánh hỏi.
Capnomancy is divination by examining smoke. This is done by looking at the movements of the smoke after a fire has been made. A thin, straight plume of smoke is thought to indicate a good omen whereas the opposite is thought of large plumes of smoke. If the smoke touches the ground, this is thought to be a sign that immediate action must be taken to avoid catastrophe.
In the United States, a biscuit is a variety of baked bread with a firm, dry exterior and a soft, crumbly interior. In Canada it sometimes also refers to this or a traditional European biscuit. It is made with baking powder as a leavening agent rather than yeast, and at times is called a baking powder biscuit to differentiate it from other types. Like other forms of bread, a biscuit is often served with butter or other condiments, flavored with other ingredients, or combined with other types of food to make sandwiches or other dishes.
Qurabiya also ghraybe, ghorayeba, ghoriba, ghribia, ghraïba, gurabija, ghriyyaba, or kourabiedes and numerous other spellings and pronunciations, is a shortbread-type biscuit, usually made with ground almonds. Versions are found in most Arab, Balkan and Ottoman cuisines, with various different forms and recipes. They are similar to polvorones from Andalusia.
Battalia pie is an English large game pie, or occasionally a fish pie, filled with many small "blessed" pieces, beatilles, of offal, in a gravy made from meat stock flavoured with spices and lemon. The dish was described in cookery books of the 17th and 18th centuries.
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