Harvesting yucca isn’t too hard. This man cut down the yucca plant, dug around in the soil a bit with his machete. Now he is pulling the roots up.
So far we’ve learned that the rainforest provides all the materials needed to build a house or a canoe. The rainforest also has enough resources to supply a family with food from plants and animals. Usually a family in the Amazon Rainforest has two gardens: a small house garden with a variety of plants, and a larger plantation which may be one hectare in area planted with bananas, manioc (yucca), or rice. These plantations are created through the traditional practice of slash and burn, a method of forest clearing that is not all that damaging to the forest if conducted in the traditional manner.
Getting the outer skin off of yucca is kind of like peeling potatoes. These people were working on a large batch.
Paddling on the Parana Capea has given us a chance to truly study how families living in the rainforest grow, harvest, and process their food. Farina has been one food of great interest to us, since it seems to be very popular in this region of Brazil. On Friday, we learned how to make farina out of yucca (in Peru) or manioc (in Brazil).
A canoe serves as the container for soaking the peeled yucca for 2 to 3 days.
It takes about six months for yucca/manioc to reach the right size for harvesting. The part you eat is the root of the plant. To harvest the plant, cut off most of the stem and pull. Clean the roots off, and then peel them using a knife. Let the peeled manioc sit in water for 2 to 3 days.
Squishing the yucca through this screen breaks it down into tiny pieces and it helps to sort out the stringy bits.
The next step is to pull the manioc out of the water and let it sit for 2 to 3 more days covered. Then, mash the manioc through a strainer or in a loosely woven basket. This breaks it down into smaller pieces and gets rid of all the stringy parts you don’t want. Then strain one more time into a large pan over a fire. A paddle helps to move the manioc around so it doesn’t burn. Once it has thoroughly dried over the fire, you have the final product—farina!
What do you think? Would you like to try some farina? You could eat it dry by the handful or with milk, like cereal. Most of the people we’ve met have just sprinkled it on top of their pasta, rice and beans, or whatever their main dish was. Farina is a great source of added protein. It doesn’t have a lot of flavor, but it certainly adds a nice crunchy texture to food. Mmm. . . mmm. . . good!
The final step in the process is to roast the farina over a large fire.
Here is the final product. Kids were taking handfuls of it and eating it as quickly as it was getting added to the bowl!
