Latest update January 3rd, 2025 2:12 AM
Cassava and its contributions captured in $2M documentary
Guyana is a country of six or arguably seven races, with each contributing to the wider culture of the country something unique.
Amerindians were the first to arrive in Guyana several hundreds of years ago during the last Ice Age and over the years have made several invaluable contributions to help mould our society.
Persons who have visited this country over the years have talked about our famous pepperpot, cassava bread, tapioca, arasuka, piwari, and cassareep among others.
It is a common fact that each Guyanese that leaves this country has in his/her luggage items such as cassava cassareep, cassava bread, cassava balls, peppers, souse and a host of other goods.
Requests are even honoured from people in the Diaspora who miss the delicacy.
The phenomenon is so widespread that it is featured in a Dave Martins song.
Despite that, most Guyanese know little about the process involved in the creation of the sought after treats.
Hence the director of the North West Organics brand, Annette Arjoon, with the help of the German Development Bank, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Guyana Protection Area Project, produced a documentary on cassava and some of its by-products that are now providing a generous income for some Amerindian villages.
And some of these villages have been using cassava for some 10,000 years (based on Archaeological evidence).
The $2M documentary was first screened on Friday last at the Guyana Tourism Authority’s Office in the Sophia Exhibition Centre.
The persons building the Amerindian village in the exhibition centre were among the privileged few to have a first look at the documentary before its official launch.
It focused primarily on the production of the cassava by-products in Moruka Santa Rosa (the largest Amerindian village in Guyana) located in Region One.
There viewers are taken on an incredible voyage exploring just how important cassava is to that community.
Cooked in various ways, cassava features in a great variety of dishes.
The soft-boiled root has a delicate flavour 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 flavour. Did you know that it takes 1,000 lbs of cassava to make just under five gallons of cassareep?
In order to make cassareep currently one would have to grate the cassava manually which is usually done by women and then it would be placed in a matapee where the juice would be extracted from the grated cassava.
The juice would then be boiled for at least 24 hrs and constantly stirred in order to come up with cassareep which is the primary ingredient for pepper-pot.
The substance is also used for medicinal purposes such as the removal of sores in the mouth, cuts and burns, among others. The starch in the juice is also used to make tapioca which is used as potency porridge for men.
It is similar to sago and is commonly used to make a milky pudding similar to rice pudding. Cassava flour, also called tapioca flour or tapioca starch, can also replace wheat flour, and is so-used by some people with wheat allergies such as coeliac disease.
The dried grated cassava is also used to make the world famous cassava bread which is currently being sold in supermarkets in Guyana and some foreign countries under the Northwest Organics label.
The leaves of the cassava plant are pounded to a fine chaff and cooked as a palaver sauce, usually with palm oil but vegetable oil can also be used.
The documentary will be on sale within a week in order to educate the public as to the intricacies involved in creating the world famous dishes.
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