Page 14 - AT

A14 LOCAL
Tuesday 31 december 2019

The Cassava Episode XLIX (49)

The Cassava should be considered a
world heritage food.

ORANJESTAD — The cassave, cassava or yuca plant for Arubans appears
to have originated in Brazil and Paraguay and especially around the Am-
azon and Orinoco river basins. The root of this particular plant is used as a
staple to make all kinds of food and as a flat bread that looks much like
a tortilla. Manihot esculenta, commonly called cassava, manioc, yuca,
macaxeira, mandioca, kappa kizhangu and aipim, is a woody shrub.
The Cassave has been spread by Amerindians throughout tropical ar-
eas of South, Central America and the Caribbean islands long before
the arrival of the Europeans, and has become a world food just as corn,
potatoes and tomatoes between many who are Native to the American
continent, staples which great civilizations has thrived upon.

The Cassava (Manihot esculenta) It is known that one of the most re-
also known as yuca is sometimes con- current Caribbean indigenous foods
fused with an agave species of North in their diet was the yuca or casabe,
America. However, the plant yucca, food made from cassava that grew
written with two letter c, is what is re- in these fields and predominated
ferred to as the North American plant among Siboneyes, Caquetios and
and yuca with only one c in what our Taínos, who were engaged in harvest-
story is about. The confusion may stem ing and agriculture, respectively. This
from cassava often being referred to was the first typical meal of the Ca-
as yuca. ribbean nations - a substitute for the
basic wheat bread diet.
Cassava or yuca is a root vegetable.
The root can be eaten and in some There was a saying widely used in
cultures is it even used as a medicine. popular Cuban slang and taken from
Cassava is used for tiredness, dehy- the colonizers, "In the absence of
dration in people with diarrhea, sep- bread, casabe."
sis, and to induce labor yet there is no
scientific evidence to support these In the United States, cassava root is
claims. also known by other common names
The cassava is a basic food for many such as, bitter cassava, manioc, tapi-
rural families with low resources. It has oca, Brazilian arrowroot, and yuca.
been considered a valuable food Cassava and tapioca flour are not
from times of the aboriginal ones the same thing.
forming part of the selection of roots
and tubers that the Cubans common-
ly denominate as `viandas.’ Continued on Page 15