Cassava Uses

Human food

Cassava-based dishes are widely consumed wherever the plant is cultivated. Some of these dishes have regional, national, or ethnic importance. Cassava must be cooked properly to detoxify it before it is eaten.

Cassava can be cooked in various ways. The soft-boiled root has a delicate flavor and can replace boiled potatoes in many uses: as an accompaniment for meat dishes, or made into purées, dumplings, soups, stews, gravies, etc.. Deep fried (after boiling or steaming), it can replace fried potatoes, with a distinctive flavor. Foufou is made from the starchy cassava-root flour. Tapioca (or fecula) is an essentially flavourless starchy ingredient produced from treated and dried cassava (manioc) root and used in cooking. It is similar to sago and is commonly used to make a milky pudding similar to rice pudding. Boba tapioca pearls are made from cassava root. It is also used in cereals for which several tribes in South America have used it extensively. It is also used in making cassava cake, a popular pastry. Cassava is used in making eba a popular food in Nigeria. It also soaked in cold water to make gari.

The juice of the bitter cassava, boiled to the consistency of thick syrup and flavored with spices, is called cassareep. It is used as a basis for various sauces and as a culinary flavoring, principally in tropical countries. It is exported chiefly from Guyana.

The leaves can be pounded to a fine chaff and cooked as a palaver sauce in Sierra Leone, usually with palm oil but vegetable oil can also be used. Palaver sauces contain meat and fish as well. It is necessary to wash the leaf chaff several times to remove the bitterness.

In DR Congo the leaves are used in a stew called Pondu in Lingala, Sombe in Swahili and Sakasaka in Kikongo. The cassava root flour is also used to make a cassava bread from boiling enough flour until it is a thick rubbery ball called Bukari in Swahili, and Luku in Kikongo. This cassava bread is often affectionately known as "La boule Nationale" (the national ball) in French. The flour is also made into a paste and fermented before boiling after wrapping in banana or other forest leaves. This fermented state is called chikwangue in French and kwanga or nkwanga in Lingala and Kikongo. This last form has a long shelf life and is a preferred food to take on long trips where refrigeration is not possible.

Cassava was also used to make alcoholic beverages. The English explorer and naturalist Charles Waterton reported in Wanderings in South America (1836) that the natives of Guyana used cassava to make liquor, which they abandoned when rum became available. Hamilton Rice, in 1913, also remarked on liquor being made from cassava in the Brazilian rainforest.

The Indian tribes in northern Brazil and Surinam –Tiriós and Erwarhoyanas- make a beverage called "sakurá" with the sweet manioc variety of cassava named Yuca. It is the same beverage made by the Jivaro in Ecuador and Peru (the Shuara, Achuara, Aguaruna and Mayna people) they call it "nijimanche". As Michael J. Harner describes it: "The sweet manioc beer (nihamanci or nijiamanchi), is prepared by first peeling and washing the tubers in the stream near the garden. Then the water and manioc are brought to the house, where the tubers are cut up and put in a pot to boil.The manioc is then mashed and stirred to a soft consistency with the aid of a special wooden paddle. While the woman stirs the mash, she chews handfuls of and spits them back into the pot, a process that may take half an hour or longer.
br> After the mash has been prepared it is transferred to a beer storage jar and left to ferment. The resultant liquid tastes somewhat like a pleasingly alcoholic buttermilk and is most refreshing. The Jivarosw consider it to be far superior to plain water, which they drink only in emergencies."

Biofuel

In many countries, significant research has begun to evaluate the use of cassava as an ethanol biofuel feedstock. Under the Development Plan for Renewable Energy in the 11th Five-Year Plan in China, the target is to increase the application of ethanol fuel by non-grain feedstock to 2 million tonnes, and that of bio-diesel to 200 thousand tonnes by 2010. This will be equivalent to a substitute of 10 million tonnes of petroleum. As a result, cassava (tapioca) chips have gradually become a major source for ethanol production . On December 22, 2007, the largest cassava ethanol fuel production facility was completed in Beihai with annual output of two hundred thousand tons, which would need an average of one and half million tons of cassava.In November 2008, China-based Hainan Yedao Group reportedly invested $51.5m (£31.8m) in a new biofuel facility that is expected to produce 33 million gallons a year of bio-ethanol from cassava plants .

Animal feed

Cassava is used worldwide for animal feed as well. Cassava hay is produced at a young growth stage, 3–4 months, harvested about 30–45 cm above ground, and sun-dried for 1–2 days until it has final dry matter of at least 85%. The cassava hay contains high protein content (20-27% Crude Protein) and condensed tannins (1.5-4% CP). It is used as a good roughage source for dairy, beef, buffalo, goats, and sheep by either direct feeding or as a protein source in the concentrate mixtures.