Abstract: An apparatus for cooking large quantities of a food product such as corn. To ensure that the individual particles of the food product being prepared will not stick together and will be uniformly cooked, each particle is surrounded by water at a controlled elevated temperature during the cooking cycle. Mechanical agitation of the product during cooking is not necessary and steeping can be accomplished within the cooking vessel.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for cooking corn is disclosed whereby corn particles are immersed in water in a cooking vessel to form a mass of corn particles, and the water is circulated throughout said mass. The temperature of the mass is raised and the corn particles agitated by directing steam, from a steam chamber, into said mass by deflecting said steam radially outwardly through perforated side walls in the steam chamber. The steam flow is then stopped whereafter the water circulation is stopped and cooked particles of corn are obtained.

Abstract: An improved apparatus for preparing taco shells from uncooked tortillas comprising a vessel having shaped side walls for containing cooking oil, a conveyor assembly including a deformable endless wire mesh belt for moving the tortillas through the cooking oil and a plurality of mold members cooperatively associated with the conveyor assembly for forming the tortillas into taco shells.In operation of the apparatus, the wire mesh belt slides along, and is controllably deformed by the shaped side walls of the vessel thereby minimizing the amount of cooking oil which is used. An additional novel feature of the apparatus resides in the unique arrangement for removing the formed taco shell directly from the rearward end of the apparatus after it has been cooked and depositing it onto an auxillary conveyor for transport to a packaging station.

Abstract: An apparatus for continuously extruding pliant material into thin sheets. Rather than following the standard approach of using cooperating rollers to extrude the material, in the apparatus of the present invention, the material is extruded through the cooperative interaction of a multi-sided rotor mechanism and a reciprocating barrier member. This arrangement overcomes many of the drawbacks inherent in extrusion devices of standard design including the undesirable tendancy of the material being extruded to tenaciously adhere to the rollers after extrusion.

Abstract: An apparatus for grinding hard grains and similar materials having a unique force feed arrangement which insures uniform material feed to the grinding members and a resulting uniform output of ground material from the apparatus.

Abstract: A method of stacking articles and an automatically controlled apparatus for successively receiving articles formed of rigid or semirigid sheet material such as cooked or partially cooked tortillas or similar food products, automatically formed orderly stacks of a predetermined number of articles, and then automatically carrying away for packaging each stack when completed.