The Food Made From Poison
By A. Hyatt Verrill
THAT sounds funny, does it
not? Yet, nearly every reader of Everyland
has eaten this food, for it is tapioca. It is no exaggeration to say
that tapioca is made from poison, for it is prepared from the manioc plant which, in its raw state, is a
deadly poison.
The manioc plant grows in
tropical America and although so poisonous, yet it is one of the most useful of plants, for it furnishes a meal
known as cassava, a superior quality of starch, tapioca, and a preservative for
meats and other foods. The process
by which the poisonous root is
transformed to a nutritive food is very interesting. It was known to the Indians for centuries before white men first
landed on the shores of the New World.
How the
Indians discovered that the
poisonous roots could be made into food is a mystery. Probably it was by
accident. Certainly it could not have been by experiment, for the person who experimented would have been pretty
sure to have died before he carried his investigations very far.
The manioc plant is a tall
bush with hand-shaped leaves and a thick, fleshy root, and in the form of cassava it is the
principal food of the South American
Indians and of many white people and thousands of black people besides.
Moreover, it is so valuable that it has been introduced to tropical countries
all over the world, and is
cultivated very largely in Africa and other places.
When an Indian wants to plant
a cassava field, he merely selects a piece of land in the
forest, chops down the big trees,
and sets fire to the branches. This
burns away the weeds and brush, and
leaves the big stumps and fallen
trees blackened and half-burned and still scattered about in confusion. But
this doesn't trouble the Indian.
Without bothering to clear away the litter, he digs holes here and there among the
stumps and tree trunks and plants the
slips of the manioc plants. Of
course, such a place doesn't look like a farm or a field as we know such
places, but it serves the Indian's
purposes, for the manioc thrives
with very little care, and after the
soil is exhausted or when the weeds
and brush spring up again, the
Indian moves to a new spot and clears another
"field."
The men clear the forest and plant the
manioc, but the women do all the rest of the
work and gather and prepare the roots. It may seem at first as if this were
unfair, but in reality the task of
clearing the forest is tremendous,
for several hundred giant trees must be felled by hand, and I think when the man has finished his work he has really done his
share.
But to return to the preparation of the
poisonous roots. When a woman wants bread, she goes to the
cassava field, and, searching about until she finds some manioc plants whose
leaves are dry and yellow, she digs up the
roots. These she packs in an open-work basket, places the
basket on her back, supported by a band of bark around her forehead, and thus
carries the heavy load to her home,
or benab.
The roots are washed and
pared and are then grated on a slab
of wood into which tiny, sharp bits of stone are fastened by means of gum and
wax. Often, nowadays, a piece of tin, punched full of holes like a giant nutmeg
grater, is used, but the Indians
prefer the wooden and stone graters
when they can be obtained. However,
as these are made only by one or two
tribes and are very valuable, few Indians can afford them.
After the
roots have been grated, the wet, pasty
mass is packed into a queer wicker-work tube known as a metapee. The
metapee is very cleverly made, so that when the
two ends are pressed together its
diameter is greatly increased, while, if the
ends are pulled apart, the metapee
becomes very slender.
While the
grated manioc roots are being placed within it, the
metapee is pressed down until it is short and stout. Then, when it is packed
full, one end is hooked over a peg on a beam and a stout stick is thrust
through a loop at the other end. Then a jug or a calabash is placed
underneath it and one or two Indian women seat themselves
upon the pole. Their weight pulls the metapee out and, as it contracts, the pressure squeezes the
juice from the grated manioc.
The juice runs down into the jug and is saved, for, although the juice is the
poisonous part of the roots, it is
very useful, as you will see.
After all the juice has been squeezed from the roots, the
metapee is taken down and, when the
two ends are pressed together, the manioc is easily removed. When taken from the metapee, the
cassava, as it is called, is in the
form of hard, white cylinders. These are placed in mortars and are broken up
with a wooden pestle, or are pounded with a club, and the
coarse meal is then sifted through a
square basket-work sieve.
The cassava meal is then mixed with a little water and is spread, in
large, thin cakes upon a piece of iron or a flat stone over a fire, to bake. As
soon as it is thoroughly cooked or dried, it is ready to eat, for the poison of the
manioc is prussic acid and any which might remain in the
meal after the manioc has been
squeezed in the metapee, is driven
off by the heat of baking.
The cassava cakes, or
"cassava bread", are finally dried in the
sun and are packed away in great piles for future use. They are eaten like
bread, or are dipped in gravy, sauce, or honey, or they
may be pounded up and used as flour, either
raw or boiled, like rice. But the
favorite way of eating it is with pepper-pot.
To make the pepper-pot, the
Indians use the poisonous juice
which has been squeezed from the
meal in the metapee. This juice is
deadly poison, but by being boiled until it becomes a thick, dark syrup, the poison is driven off. This is known as cassareep
and is a wonderful preservative. Into the
jug of cassareep are thrown red peppers, vegetables, meat, fish, and any other odds and ends of food. By boiling the mixture from time to time, the pepper-pot keeps forever, and every Indian house
always has a big jar of pepper-pot standing ready for use.
It is a very pleasant-tasting
dish when well made, although rather
hot. But if you eat pepper-pot with the
Indians, you must be prepared to find surprising things in it, such as monkeys'
hands and birds' heads and feet, or even the
scaly tails of Iguana lizards or big grubs and caterpillars, for the Indians never waste anything that can be eaten.
It is from the cassava meal that tapioca is made. The meal is
boiled in water until it has dissolved, and then
sprinkled upon a heated surface which hardens the
jelly-like substance into the
little, rounded, semi-transparent lumps that you see in your tapioca pudding.
The next time you eat that kind of pudding, remember that it is made from
poison. You won't be afraid of it on that account, for you will also remember
how the Indians have squeezed out the poisonous juice and baked the
meal to make it safe for you to eat.
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