The cassava root is long and tapered, with a firm homogeneous flesh encased in a detachable rind, about 1 mm thick, rough and brown on the outside, just like a potato. Commercial varieties can be 5 to 10 cm in diameter at the top, and 50 to 80 cm long. A woody cordon runs along the root's axis. The flesh can be chalk-white or yellowish. The cassava plant gives the highest yield of food energy per cultivated area per day among crop plants, except possibly for sugarcane.
TRIBAL AND HERBAL MEDICINE USES
In Guatemala, yuca is usually served as a side dish to any meal, mostly with soups. Although there are many typical dishes with yuca such as yuca con chicharrón, a dish made by combining chicharron and boiled yuca. There is also platano con yuca which consists of green or ripe plantains mashed together.
The root is also used to make alcoholic beverages by chewing the root and spitting it into a large pot where the saliva begins the fermentation process.
Wild populations of M. esculenta subspecies flabellifolia, shown to be the progenitor of domesticated cassava, are centered in west-central Brazil where it was likely first domesticated no more than 10,000 years BP.[4] By 6,600 BC, manioc pollen appears in the Gulf of Mexico lowlands, at the San Andres archaeological site.[5] The oldest direct evidence of cassava cultivation comes from a 1,400 year old Maya site, Joya de Ceren, in El Salvador.[6] although the species Manihot esculenta likely originated further south in Brazil and Paraguay. With its high food potential, it had become a staple food of the native populations of northern South America, southern Mesoamerica, and the West Indies by the time of the Spanish conquest, and its cultivation was continued by the colonial Portuguese and Spanish. Forms of the modern domesticated species can be found growing in the wild in the south of Brazil. While there are several wild Manihot species, all varieties of M. esculenta are cultigens.
PLANT CHEMICALS
Cassava roots are very rich in starch, and contain significant amounts of calcium (50 mg/100g), phosphorus (40 mg/100g) and vitamin C (25 mg/100g). However, they are poor in protein and other nutrients. In contrast, cassava leaves are a good source of protein if supplemented with the amino acid methionine despite containing cyanide.
CURRENT PRACTICAL USES
The roots, which resemble sweet potatoes and are eaten in much the same way, yield yuca starch. The root can be boiled, baked, or roasted. yuca roots are also used for laundry starch, and are the source of tapioca, a preparation of cassava-root starch used as a food, in bread or as a thickening agent in liquid foods, notably puddings but also soups and juicy pies.
In processing tapioca, heat ruptures the yucca starch grains, converting them to small, irregular masses that are further baked into flake tapioca. A pellet form, known as pearl tapioca, is made by forcing the moist starch through sieves
