1. Technical Field
This invention generally relates to a new helical spiral food product shape and a method and apparatus for making the same. More particularly, it relates to a helical spiral food product such as a french fry and a food product cutting apparatus which includes a penetration blade for piercing a food product along its longitudinal axis immediately before the food product is fed into a helical ring cutter blade assembly so as to cut helical spirals of food product of more uniform length.
2. Background Art
While the industrial context within which the present invention was developed is the processing of whole fresh potatoes into french fry type cut food pieces, it should be clearly pointed out that the present invention is amendable for use with any food product that can be cut into helical spiral pieces, including beets, carrots, zucchini, radishes and apples, as well as most other vegetables and fruits. For purposes of this disclosure, the food product being processed is the potato, however it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that food product shapes, the methods, processes and apparatus for making the same, are equally applicable to most other fruits and vegetables.
The traditional American french fry is a well accepted food and method of serving potatoes both here in the United States and in western Europe. Indeed, it is rapidly gaining wide acceptance around the world. As a result, a large industry has grown up around the french fry, starting with sophisticated horticultural practices, through crop storage, to processing whole potatoes into frozen french fries, and finally, to supermarkets, restaurants, fast food chains and the dining room table. This industry is, of course, consumer driven. It is the consuming population that generates the demand and growth within the industry.
The typical configuration for the standard french fry has, in general terms, been dictated by the shape of the potato. The most desirable types of potatoes used for processing into french fries are the varieties which produce the largest tuber potato. For example, and for purposes of illustration throughout this specification, the Russet Burbank potato variety commonly grown in the State of Idaho and the eastern regions of the States of Washington and Oregon will be used as an example. This potato is generally oblong in shape and, for french fry processing, has a minimum size of approximately three inches in length by two inches in width. As a result, it can be generally described as having a longitudinal axis running through its center, along its length and a shorter transverse axis passing through the center point of the potato at its widest point.
For processing of the standard french fries, the potato is cut along and parallel to its longitudinal axis in generally rectangular configurations to produce long french fry pieces preferably of uniform cross sectional areas. It is important that the french fries be of a relatively uniform cross sectional area because they are bulk processed and cooked.
The typical french fry processing operation involves peeling the whole potatoes and then passing them either through mechanical or hydraulically driven potato cutters wherein the raw, whole potato is cut into french fry pieces. These cut food pieces are then blanched to break down certain enzymes and par fried in preparation for freezing. Typically, blast freezers are used to quick freeze the cut, blanched and par fried french fry pieces prior to packaging.
Because of the volumes of french fry pieces being processed in any given processing plant, the cross sectional area, and more importantly the uniformity of cross sectional area, and how the cut french fry pieces tangle together are particularly important factors in the blanching, par frying, freezing and packaging processes. Ideally, the cut french fry pieces will be of uniform cross sectional area, and not tangled too much together so as to lay against one another and form large mass areas which would require additional processing time for blanching, par frying and freezing. After they are cut, they are grade inspected for removal of nonuniform and below grade quality pieces.
Given all of these processing and cooking considerations, it must still be kept in mind that the industry is consumer demand driven. There is a constant and continuing demand for new shaped french fry cuts. As a result, efforts have been made to develop novel shaped french fries such as french fries formed in the shape of fish, or the letter M, or a variety of other geometric shapes as shown in my patent, United States No. 4,911,045, dated Mar. 27, 1990. While decorative cut french fries can and are produced using these processes, it increases the costs of processing since it is a two stage process. First, the core of the potato must be cut into a decorative shape, then, secondly, in an independent cutting process, the core must be cross sliced to form french fry size pieces.
One shape, developed a number of years ago, has found popular acceptance with the consuming public, but which presents problems for the processor and restaurateur, is the helical spiral french fry commonly known as the curly french fry. These helical spirals of french fry pieces are cut mechanically by a process of engaging the potato, end on, into a rotating cutter blade assembly having a plurality of ring cutters extending normally out from the blade and a shear blade similar to the cutter blade assembly shown in FIG. 3. As the potato is pushed continuously into engagement with the rotating cutter blade, the ring cutters continuously dig into and cut concentric rings in the potato core. These concentric rings are then sheared from the body of the potato by the shear blade and pass through a hole in the cutter blade assembly to the other side. This results in the formation of helical spirals of cut potato pieces of varying concentric diameters and perhaps more importantly, of greatly varying lengths. With potatoes, as with most fruits and vegetables, when cut, the spiral shaped cut pieces relax, and as a result they expand out from the closed, tightly wound configuration to a more open spiral. With potatoes, the typical expansion usually ranges from 100% to 200%. If helical spirals are cut from potatoes that are six to eight inches long, this will result in helical spirals, after they have relaxed, of twelve to twenty four inches in length, which if straightened out, can literally be several feet long.
These helical spirals are too long for a number of reasons. First, the relaxed or opened spirals interlock. The relaxed spirals of food product are flexible, and it is difficult and time consuming to manually separate interlocked twenty four inch spirals of cut potato. Secondly, they are too long for convenient processing and packaging. And finally, these long spirals have a propensity to break during processing. In fact, because of the processing and packaging problems, commercial processors intentionally allow the breakage of the long spirals so as to create a collection of shorter, more manageable spiral pieces. The problem is that the long spirals will break into various random lengths ranging from partial arcs to pieces several inches long.
While these collections of random length pieces are usually short enough and adequate for processing, the random length collections themselves present problems, primarily with portion sizing for both packaging and individual serving sizes. Additionally, the random lengths result in a rather unattractive or untidy food plate presentation when served.
Accordingly, what is needed, is a helical spiral shaped food piece that is short enough in length so that it will not be readily susceptible to breakage during processing, thereby eliminating the random lengths collections. A second object is to be able to produce short spirals of predetermined, and uniform, radial lengths.
A third object of this invention is to provide a cutting apparatus which can cut spiral shaped food product pieces of uniform radial length in a single cutting process, thus eliminating the requirement for a second cutting stage wherein a potato core is cross sliced.