Cassava Flatbread
If it has not been already established, I am a snack queen. So, something crunchy, slightly salty and good for you all simultaneously is my shuzzh. I think I may have come up with my new snack for 2020 – cassava flatbread crackers. Imported from the Dominican Republic, the snack cut circularly into three large quarters, has quite a bit of fiber, is gluten free and vegan too. Some preparation is required, but it is minimal, and you could really do this with the entire package and enjoy snacks for at least a week! Here’s what I did:
Cassava Crackers
- Cassava Flat Bread (Casabi or Yucca is the same thing)
- Organic Olive or Avocado Oil
- Parmesan Cheese (For Vegans use Nutritional Yeast Flakes and a bit of Real Salt)
- Organic Thyme
- Organic Rosemary
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the rough side down on a cookie sheet and drizzle the entire piece of Cassava with oil, cheese, and herbs. Be generous with the Parmesan ensuring the edges are covered. Place in the oven and cook for 10 minutes. Remove, let cool and voila! Serve as a flat bread with soups and salads if you’d like.
Robin, cassava is a staple food in Harriet’s culture (she’s a Belizean Garifuna). every culture, I think, has its own unleavened bread, and for Garifunas, that’s cassava bread. Harriet says no Garifuna house is ever without cassava bread – we even have a supply in Tucson. I suppose much of it is now machine made, but as Harriet was growing up in her little village of Barranco, women would gather to prepare the bread. it’s a very labor intensive process. The roots were gathered and peeled, then grated on a tool made with tiny stones embedded in a wooden board. This device is called an egee in the Garifuna language. The grated cassava was then put into a long woven deice called a ruguma, and the top was hooked onto a tree branch, and the women used their body weight to squeeze the starch and liquid from the cassava. The cassava was then removed, and the cylinders put into a large wooden bowl and broken down into pieces. They then sifted the cassava with a woven device to keep all of the pieces pretty uniform in size. The sifted cassava was then spread on a large comal over a wood fire, and baked. This was a truly community project.
I have a couple of pictures I’d like to send, but I can’t see any process for attaching them here. One is a photo of a painting done many, many years ago by one of Harriet’s cousin, Benjamin Nicholas, and the other is a photo of some of the cassava bread we have here in our house in Belmopan, Belize. If you’d like to see them, drop me an email and I’ll send them along.
BTW, we also do our thing with black beans, Brazilian style. Cooked with sausage, pork, and lots of herbs, garlic and onion. But we deviate from Brazilian-ness, I suppose, when we serve it with good old American cornbread!
I really like your blog, Robin!
Thanks,
Tom Scarborough