Cassava, an illustrious (un)known: Consumption of recipes with the root and its derived products

Abstract

Cassava is a Brazilian food with extensive culinary use of both the fresh root and its derived products. However, up to date, research on the consumption of the root and its derived products has not been reported in Brazil. Thus, it is important to estimate the frequency of consumption of this root and its products, as well as to understand which products are not yet consumed and for what reasons. Therefore, the aim was to identify the consumption and culinary uses of cassava and its derived products. This was an exploratory study, through the answers obtained from an online self-completed questionnaire. Among the 1487 participants, the most used nomenclature to refer to cassava is aipim and the consumption of white cassava is higher (71.8%) compared to the yellow cassava. The culinary recipes made with cassava root and most frequently consumed were boiled cassava, fried cassava, and cassava with different types of meat. The most frequently consumed recipes with derived products were tapioca, cassava cheese puffs, crackers with cassava derived products and recipes with cassava flour. The most used derived product, as an ingredient, was cassava flour (raw or toasted). Several recipes or derived products were marked as not consumed, mostly because they are unknown from the public or due to lack of habit: cauim, caxiri and/or pajuaru, tiquira (alcoholic beverages), grude or malcasado (made with tapioca starch), tacacá (soup with tucupi and tapioca gum), meats prepared with tucupi, beers with cassava, porridges with cassava derived products, flocked tapioca, tapioca pudding, cassava's sago, tapioca ice cream, tapioca's cubes (fried or baked cubes of cut cooked tapioca), cassava cuscuz (sweet or savoury), cakes with cassava derived products, crepioca (egg with tapioca starch). Sixty-seven percent of the participants did not know the dish maniçoba, made with the cassava leaves. In conclusion, it is important to encourage the consumption of this root and its products to strengthen the cultural identity of Brazilians and to expand the possibilities of use in the context of gastronomy and hospitality industry.