206 Singing Valleys 



steadily more valuable as industry developed new and wider 

 uses for it. 



Starch cannot be manufactured synthetically. It can only be 

 separated from the other constituents of the grain or the root. 

 Exactly what is starch? No one knows. Our knowledge of the 

 substance extends to what it does for the plant and how the 

 plant forms it. But just what it, itself, is remains a mystery 

 even to the chemists. In most plants starch is formed out of 

 water and carbon dioxide gas in the air by the action of the 

 green coloring matter in the plant under the activating influ- 

 ence of sunlight. It is made in the leaves as reserve food mate- 

 rial. There it is transformed into sugars, broken down into cell 

 juice and so passed through the cell walls of the plant to the 

 fruit and seeds. There the sugar is reconstructed into starch, 

 and stored as food for the embryo to feed on during the period 

 of germination. 



All seeds of all plants contain some starch. And all starch 

 possesses certain distinct characteristics. It is insoluble in cold 

 water. But hot water causes the granules to burst and to 

 form a viscous, jelly-like liquid which becomes firm when it 

 cools. However, the various plant starches have also definite 

 characteristics of their own which identify them when seen 

 through a microscope. Spill a drop of water with a grain or 

 two of potato starch on the glass under a microscope and you 

 will behold dozens of miniature potatoes, and miniature clam- 

 shells floating in the water. Those clamshell markings, and 

 the potato-like form of the grains, identify the source of the 

 starch as incontrovertibly as a nest of blue eggs reveal parent 

 robins. The granules of cornstarch are sharply angled penta- 

 grams and hexagrams, each with a tiny cross marked on it. 

 There is no mistaking cornstarch for rice starch, or for the 

 starch of the tapioca. 



Besides the varieties in appearance, the starch granules 

 show other peculiarities: potato starch snaps, tapioca starch 

 tends to be stringy. Cornstarch is one of the most amenable 

 of all. This fact, as well as the high proportion of starch in 



