Abstract: The method of forming flat dough pieces for producing flat perforated crackers by placing a thin continuous sheet of cracker dough on a fabric belt and cutting the dough with a die which cuts circles in the dough sheet and simultaneously presses the cut out dough sections against the fabric belt with sufficient force to cause them to adhere thereto. The die also cuts the dough sheet into longitudinal strips and scores the strips to define individual product pieces. The dough strips are lifted off the fabric belt and thus separated from the cut out dough sections which are subsequently removed from the belt by a scraping blade.

Abstract: Crumbled cheese curd is fed into the top of a hollow column in a chamber maintained at a sub-atmospheric pressure so as to form in the column a pillar of curd devoid of air pockets. The curd in the lower portion of the pillar being compressed by the weight of superimposed curd to press out whey therefrom and consolidate the curd, and the pillar of curd is repeatedly lowered, the bottom end of the pillar severed to form a block of cheese, and fresh curd added to the top of the pillar. During the lowering of the pillar of curd, the top of the pillar is subjected to a higher pressure than that acting on the bottom of the pillar so that the differential pressure exerts a force on the top of the pillar urging the pillar downwards and prevents fracture of the pillar due to frictional resistance with the walls of the column.

Abstract: Method and apparatus for applying a cooking mix to the rotary cooking drum of an automatic machine for making pancakes or the like by means of a continuously rotating paste-entraining roller partly immersed to a substantially constant depth in a mix tank, the film of mix being entrained by adhesion on the surface of the roller and contacting movable means for partly retaining this film, resulting in the formation of a bead of mix which touches lightly upon the surface of the cooking drum and thus coats it.

Abstract: An expanded board-like food product in the form of a thin wafer-like sheet having a plurality of elongated chambers rectangular in cross section and formed by passing a viscoelastic dough cake formed of edible vegetable material through a gap between a pair of opposingly rotating rollers and then a gap between a pair of scrapers. The product has many advantages to the conventional plastic porous board.

Abstract: A vegetable sauce containing a vegetable paste an edible fat and other ingredients is blended, heated, air is injected, and the sauce is chilled and extruded into congealed strand-like form.

Abstract: Pitted olives are stuffed with a reconstituted pimento prepared by shaping an aqueous dispersion of macerated pimento having dissolved therein alginic acid or a salt thereof. The shaped dispersion is contacted with a solution of a divalent cation and a non-reversible gel is formed, which gel is cut and stuffed into pitted olives with a conventional olive-stuffing machine.

Abstract: A method of preparing animal food pellets wherein cooked mash under atmospheric pressure is forced through a die wherein the mash has been cooked under superatmospheric pressure.

Abstract: A texturized protein is formed by a process wherein a cereal grain protein capable of forming microfibrillar aggregates is first dissolved in water, and the pH of the solution is adjusted to 5.0-6.0. Then, the ionic strength of the solution is adjusted to 0.004-0.010 to aggregate the protein molecules into microfibrils, which are subsequently aligned in a parallel arrangement by application of a unidirectional shear thereto. Finally, an oscillating shear is applied to the aligned microfibrils, causing them to collide and thereby become texturized.

Abstract: A method of continuously forming elongated protein filaments from a cooked meat source is disclosed which comprises forming an aqueous slurry of a cooked meat source having a solids content of at least about 10 percent by weight and a pH of between about 3 and 10, followed by treatment of the noted slurry to provide a pumpable slurry with a viscosity ratio, as measured at a solids level of 15 percent by weight, to an uncooked meat slurry of substantially identical composition of at least about 1:2. Elongated protein filaments are thereafter formed from the slurry by continuously conducting the slurry under pressure through a heat exchanger and heating the slurry to a critical temperature of at least about 280.degree. F. and preferably between about 310.degree. - 335.degree. F. while the protein is subjected to such temperature for a sufficient period of time so that elongated filaments are separated from the slurry.

Abstract: Meat-like foods having a perceptible fiber bundle structure resembling that of natural muscle meat are prepared by mechanically interlocking edible protein fibers, such as spun vegetable protein fibers, in groups, which are subsequently assembled into a mass and set to a coherent body with an edible binder, preferably a heat-coagulable protein. The fibers in the bundles may be entwined or enravelled by the turbulence of a fluid jet, such as air or water, or by being passed between rotating parallel rollers that are reciprocated relative to one another in the direction of their axes.

Abstract: The present invention is a proteinaceous food product and a method of its production. A mixture of protein and water is formed into a thin film between successive parallel rolls rotating in opposite directions and at sequentially increasing speeds so as to impart at least a 40% stretch to the film prior to removing the stretched film from the last roll with a blade set at an angle to the roll. The scraping off of the thin film forms a structure consisting of groups of many small folds interspersed on substantially larger folds. Compaction of this material creates a fiberous structure composed of the numerous small folds of material surrounded by a matrix of the material once comprising the larger folds. This compacted structure approximates the structure of natural meat where fibers are dispersed in a matrix of connective tissue.

Abstract: The method comprises the steps of coating the two larger sides of chewing-gum slabs with a film of granulated sugar and submitting them to a spray of a hot fluid, passing then said slabs through a drying tunnel in which, besides being dried, the slabs are cooled in view of grouping them in a packing station to obtain packed units containing several independent slabs which cannot stick together.

Abstract: A process for producing uniformly shaped chip-type products having a surface design thereon. The process provides chip-type products having a series of substantially parallel alternate arcuate ridges and grooves extending across both surfaces which effect a rippled appearance to the products wherein the rippled configuration is impressed only on one surface of the dough by a mill roll having an annularly grooved surface.