Cynthia D. Bertelsen's Gherkins & Tomatoes
A Writer's Musings on Nature and Culture, Since 2008
The small Paraguayan girl – all of maybe 8 years old - yelled “Chipa, chipa!" She thrust an enormous flat basket draped with a smudged white cloth against the open window of the bus. And I smelled the warm cassava bread even before she flicked off the cloth with a flourish, much as a magician…
Continue reading ➞ Cassava, Manioc, Yuca, It’s All the Same
Cassava, for me, remains the Sleeping Beauty of Latin American kitchens. I remember clearly the first time I ever ate cassava. I was sitting on a porch in a Paraguayan boarding house, torrential rain streaming hard off the thatched roof. I really didn't know what I was doing there, on so many levels. Behind that wall of water, the cook - a…
Continue reading ➞ Cassava, One Rugged World-Traveling Ingredient
[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]
