Yucca Bread

Today’s main activity was a trip to a local farm to make yucca bread.  Yucca – manioak or cassava in English – is a type of very starchy root vegetable.  We started off by pulling up a plant, or Andrew did for us.  From there our local guide, Doña Carmen, showed us how to slit the skin and peel the outer layer off.  From there they were scrubbed and then the hard work began as we pureed them on a large metal grater. The mush was then wrapped up in a giant tube and wound up to wring out all the liquid.  The nearly dry powder was then sieved through a giant sieve before beginning the cooking process.  While we had been preparing the yucca, a flat clay disk had been heating over an open fire.  Doña Carmen showed us how to spread a heaped mate cup of yucca onto the hot plate and spread it around to form a flat pizza base with a broad spatula-like piece of wood.  The mate cup was then used to gently press the bread to bind it together.  Amazingly it was then possible to lift the bread with the spatula, sweep the clay disk with a bunch of leaves and flip the pizza base.

Once the first ones were complete we were invited to have a go.  The challenge proved to be not the technique, but withstanding the heat.  It was already well above 30 in the little hut, and standing over the fire to spread and then press the yucca was definitely an endurance test.

Once the cooking was complete it was time to start eating.  We had a savoury option of tuna salad and hot chilli sauce and sweet options of chocolate sauce and blackberry jam.  Both options were well received and yucca bread was considered a success.

On the way back to camp we stopped for a spot of fishing and then swam on the other side of the river – 50m from where we had caught four piranha, two of which we kept for dinner.

 Waiting for photo from non swimmer to prove swimming.

Hazel