Lake Capoey

Our group of education trainees took a tour (field trip) to Capoey Mission Amerindian village. We broke into groups and had a teenage guide take us around the village and tell us all about it. It was beautiful! We had an opportunity to see a woman making cassava bread, a staple food item of the Amerindians. It is quite a process to make! The cassava is a root vegetable that grows beneath the cassava tree. It is dug up and part of the tree is replanted and can be re-harvested in a year. The cassava is grated down and put into a long tube (I forget the name but it kind of looks like a huge Chinese finger trap- right?) and the liquid is squeezed out. The liquid is poisonous at this stage, it must be boiled down to a thick sauce called casareep. Casareep is used to flavor foods and as a preserving agent, most commonly used in a favorite dish called “pepper pot.” After the liquid has been removed from the cassava, it is dried and placed on an outdoor stove made of mud to make the bread. The bread is then thrown on rooftops to dry in the sun. Cassava bread is the most delicious cardboard I have ever eaten!!!

*** I have awesome pics of this but it is taking too long to upload so I will have to attempt again later... sorry***