Baking Cassava Bread!

I have been asking for months,since I got to the village, to learn how to make cassava bread.  It's a staple in the village and constantly being made.  It's a large part of life here and I wanted to be a part of it.  I wanted to learn what it takes to make it, from start to finish.  Every time I asked someone to let me come help with the cassava work, they laughed.  

I did get a chance, once, to come help scrape and grate cassava.  I thought that might just have to be the end of my cassava career until one day, much to my delight, a woman pulled me aside after a village meeting to tell me she was making cassava bread.  I didn't know what to say.  Was she inviting me?  This was too good to be true!

Well, she was inviting me to help, start from finish, and make cassava bread. :)  Of course, I accepted.

One Saturday morning, Auntie Mercedes came to get me at my home.  We walked down the hill, across the creek, and up the hill to the sandbank where she lives.  Under the shade of a simple leaf cover, the ENTIRE family was sitting around scraping cassava.  Everyone was involved.  

Here are Uncle Henry and Grandfather scraping the skin off of the cassava.

After you scrape the cassava, you have to grate it.  The grater most families use is a milk tin, rolled out and nailed to a wooden board.  Small holes are poked into the milk tin to create the sharp points.

This is Grannie scraping cassava with both hands at the same time!  I tried doing it myself but it was politely implied that I stop once I'd cut open a few fingers on both hands.  Apparently blood in the cassava is frowned upon.

The next part is so fun to watch.  There are two types of cassava: bitter and sweet.  The bitter cassava is used to make cassava bread but there is a poison in it that must be strained out before consumption.  To strain, they use what is called a matapi, which is like a giant Chinese finger trap.  The grated cassava is shoved inside.

Then the matapi is hung from a tree and pulled to start getting the poisonous liquid out.

The matapi has to be pulled to strain all the liquid from the cassava.  A large stick is shoved in the bottom loop to further pull the matapi.

The strained cassava is then sifted through a cassava sifter which is hand made in the village.  This is my friend Roshell sifting the cassava into a fine powder like flour.

The cassava flour is now ready to be made into cassava bread.  It is poured out onto a hot tawa over a fireside oven.  We use a tawa for cooking in our home, only it's about 1/6 of the size of this one!

Next the cassava flour is pushed out to the edges of the tawa.   This must be done carefully so as not to burn your fingers on the hot tawa.  The edges are then pulled in to create a solid border.

Excess cassava flour is scraped off the top and saved for the next cake.

This, I believe is the hardest part: the cassava bread must be flipped to bake on the other side.  Auntie Mercedes is very good and never drops it.

Now for my turn.  Auntie Mercedes let me make several and this was my first one.  I was only allowed to make small ones at first. :)

I still managed to break it in flipping. They found it hilarious.  Thankfully, so did I. Auntie Mercedes was patient and kind.  She let me make a few more, and eventually I stopped breaking them. 

The cassava bread has to be laid out to cool.  Kimberly is another one of Auntie Mercedes' daughters. She took the pictures of me making cassava bread and cracked up the whole time.  She found it hilarious that "Miss" was making cassava bread.

When it is cool enough, it is placed out in the sun to dry.  Auntie Mercedes lives at the top of a beautiful mountain and has plenty of rocks to lay her cassava out on.  Most people put theirs on the roof to cool.

Making cassava bread on a fireside oven is a lot of work.  The first requires a lot of attention: fanning, smothering, feeding....lots and lots of work.  It's hot, exhausting, and you get smoke in your eyes.  The women here cook like this everyday.  They're amazing and strong.

This is Roshell's daughter Ronessa.  I love her.  She's one of the first babies that let me hold them without crying. :)  Now she's one and starting to walk.

Grandfather was making a new cassava sifter.  They make two kinds of sifters.  The one that we used this day had fine holes for sifting the cassava.  To make farine (another staple made with cassava), a sifter with larger holes is used.

Cora is Auntie Mercedes's youngest daughter.  We spent the better part of the afternoon drawing in the sand together.  

I was so thankful to be a part of their day, making cassava bread with their family.  It really was a privilege.