People all over Brazil regularly eat a food called farina. Brazilians use farina as a condiment and sprinkle it over everything from soup to vegetables, meat and fish, much like the Italians use Parmesan cheese. Farina is a small crunchy food that is made from the manioc plant. Manioc is a tuberous root, meaning that the part people eat grows under ground. Potatoes are tuberous roots, as are radishes and turnips.

Manioc is peeled and soaked in water before being made into Farina.

Manioc can be eaten in several different ways. It can be fried and eaten with ketchup like French Fries. Manioc can also be boiled and added to soups or eaten like boiled potatoes. There are two common types of manioc: the sweet type and the bitter type. Believe it or not, if eaten raw, manioc is poisonous. The cyanide, or toxin, is destroyed during the cooking process.

People have been cultivating manioc for thousands of years. The Aztecs, Incas, and ancient Amazonians grew manioc long before they grew corn, squash, or beans. How they figured out that this otherwise poisonous plant is edible is pretty amazing.

Manioc grows underground like a potato.

The manioc plant grows in a bushy form, up to 8 ft tall, with greenish- yellow flowers. The roots are very starchy and grow up to 3 inches thick and up to 3 feet long. The fresh roots can be cooked much like potatoes, once peeled they can be boiled, baked or fried.

Manioc is a great food source in the Amazon, because it yields a high level of food and only requires a small space to grow. It is high in starch, calcium, and Vitamin C. However, it contains very little protein and other nutrients. Once planted, the manioc plant pretty much takes care of itself. And re-planting manioc is as simple as cutting a small stalk of it and putting it in the ground. Manioc takes about 6-18 months to start producing food. The long the plant is left in the ground, the larger it grows. However, if left in the ground too long, manioc becomes woody and difficult to eat.

Farina is slowly cooked over a fire.

At just about every restaurant in Brazil, a little bowl of farina is on the table, along with salt and pepper. Farina is made through a number of steps. The first step after harvesting the manioc is to peel it. This is usually done with a machete or large knife.

Next, the manioc, which now resembles a peeled potato, is put into a canoe full of water and covered with a giant palm leaf. This keeps animals from eating it, and it also keeps it cool. When the manioc is left in the canoe full of water for a couple of days, it begins to ferment and become sticky and smelly.

After the manioc has sat for a couple of days, it is brought up to a house or shelter where a large fire is built in a round clay oven. The water is squeezed out of the manioc and then it is mashed-up into a paste.

When the farina is ready everyone wants a taste!

A huge cast-iron dish is put over the fire, and the mashed up manioc is put in and stirred with a large wooden spoon. Eventually the mashed up manioc begins to break up into small bits, which then becomes farina. The farina is distributed throughout Brazil to restaurants, markets, and homes of just about every Brazilian.