Asakiyume mita

UNESCO has conferred the status of intangible cultural heritage on casabe, flatbread made from cassava. It was nominated by several countries of the Caribbean including Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and Honduras ... but I remember fondly from Leticia, Colombia. (link.... but I just heard the story on NPR, so later this evening you can go there, too.)

The Ticuna word for casabe is dowü.

Here are some photos of my tutor's mom kindly letting me help with making one. You can make it with grated cassava, which is what I do at home, or with cassava starch (tapioca!), which is what my tutor's family does (and I think it's widespread practice).

... The photos are cropped to preserve privacy, but the woman in pink is my tutor's mom. I'm in orange ;-)

First we strained the starch. The tool used for this is called a cernidor in Spanish, cuechinü in Ticuna.



Then we pressed it onto a hot pan (look at the yummy fish in the foreground!)



And here it is, done!

This is one thing I want to go back to the Amazon for: to join in in this (if there was a community that wouldn't mind that). The screenshots here are taken from a gorgeous 21-minute video made by the Department of Intangible Heritage of Peru's Ministry of Culture (the Tikuna/Ticuna/Magüta people's ancestral lands encompass portions of Peru, Colombia, and Brazil).

Here's a link to that video: Uí, preparación y vigencia de la fariña entre los ticuna

It starts by situating us in relation to the forest, to the trees and plants. An anthropologist says that for the Tikuna, "plants are the beings that possess all knowledge ... they are the most intelligent beings there are." I like it better when people are allowed to speak for themselves, and fortunately that's the case in the rest of the film. But I like this idea, and at least I could feel warmth and respect from this woman toward the Tikuna, and toward their respect for plants.

( screenshots of the flooded forest and a solo tree against the clouds )

It starts in a field, digging up the cassava tubers. You can see what the cassava plant looks like on the right, and you can get a sense of how big those tubers are! Coincidentally, in the story by Nando I'm currently (very slowly) translating from Tetun, a husband and wife are digging up a kind of yam, and it's a lot of work, and looking at this video, I can see the how and why of that.



Some peeling happens right out in the field. I took this screenshot because I was admiring the little kid, who, though it's not clear in the picture, is wielding a knife of his own: helping!



And I liked this image of everyone coming back to the community with the tubers they'd dug up because of the boy playing the drum and cradling a tuber like a phone between his shoulder and head.



Half of the peeled cassava is left in water to "ripen," and the other half is immediately grated (and then left to ripen... both portions are going to be mixed together in the end, and it all ends up grated, so I'm not understanding this step, but I'm sure there's a good reason for it).

In the community where this video was made, they have a machine for grating the cassava:





(Some cassava is also pounded. Again, not clear on how this figures in to the process. I thought I was understanding the Spanish fairly well, but I could have missed something.)
( strong arms )

The video also shows women making the sieves that will be used to strain the grated cassava, and also making the tipiti, a long, woven tube into which the grated cassava is packed.



Once the cassava's packed, the tipiti is hung from a tree and a heavy stick is inserted at the bottom of the tube. Then someone sits on it, and the tube contracts and the moisture is squeezed out of the mash!



The person speaking says if you don't want to sit on the stick, you can just use one that's very heavy that'll do the squeezing for you.

And beneath the cut you can see the mash coming out of the tipiti and being strained:

( three photos )

Next comes toasting it. You start early in the morning and go through into the afternoon, or even, if you want, to the following day:



"If there's no fish, there's fariña. What's important is to never lose the cultivation of cassava because in it is the people's way of life,” says one man.



( two photos of fariña in meals )

¡Gracias por acompañarme en esta história de fariña!

In Japan, even before you enter a store, an employee will call out "Irasshaimase!" inviting you in. In Bogotá it was "A la orden!" Around lunch time, employees of the eateries would cruise around with menus--at some distance from the eatery, even--and invite you in.

That's what happened to us with El Patron. Leonardo, who looked like a teen and had a brilliant smile, came up to us and ushered us up the street, around the corner, and into El Patron. When my Spanish got us only so far, he introduced us to Laura, who spoke beautiful English and chatted to us about all sorts of things. She had the best way of saying "egg-ZACT-ly" when I guessed what English word she was searching for. The food was delicious and plentiful and very, very inexpensive. We came back several times, and in our conversations we learned that Laura was from Venezuela (many Venezuelans have taken refuge in Colombia because of the economic free fall of present-day Venezuela).

I loved this message at El Patron:



(There is no Wi-Fi; talk among yourselves)

It's a very them type of message. El Patron is not an on-the-map place. (It's not the "El Patron" that comes up if you do a search on that name and Bogotá. I know exactly where it is, and it's not listed on Google maps even at the highest magnification. Sailing underneath the radar.)

Here's a view from where we sat.



And here is Laura (on the right), with Erika--"not just a coworker, we're truly friends," she said.



El Patron was the sit-down place we liked best; otherwise, we liked getting things in the street. Here, arepas:



They are cooked on a charcoal brazier on the front of a very sturdy bicycle.

And here's a mobile coffee vendor:



Fruits deserve an entry of their own....

best pasta
My favorite shape of pasta is long fusilli.

One supermarket I go to has it (the one with the Lenten ideas, actually), but the near supermarket doesn't. I bought lots of packages last time I was at the one supermarket, and last night we had some. I love-love-love the feel in my mouth.

Do you have a favorite shape of pasta?

Knife throwee or lion's mouth?

A cafe in a nearby town has old board games for patrons to play. We didn't play any, but one that I noticed was called something like "Which would you rather?" where I guess you must have to choose between various alternatives. The one featured on the box was, "Which would you rather be, the person in the circus that the knife thrower throws knives at, or the one who puts their head in the lion's mouth?" wakanomori and I chose opposite, but we both had good reasons. How about you?

Owl in Love

I'm reading this fun YA book that was first published in 1993. It's told by 14-year-old Owl, who is a girl by day and an owl by night. Her narrative voice is fabulous, like when she describes her human parents, who are hedge witches.

My parents are very, very honest. The would never sell a charm, no, not even the merest good-luck piece, if they did not believe it gave good value for money. On the other hand, they are both blessed with an optimistic and uncritical nature, so they are able to offer quite a large line of goods with a clear conscience.

Letter L
My keyboard isn't responding well to my attempt to press the L key. I keep on having to go back and type it harder.

Balance
Did you know it's harder to balance on one foot if you have your eyes closed? It is.

... I think that'll do for now.... I'll be back; I have to go pick up a pizza.

With a whole bottle of palm oil to use, I clearly need to make more Nigerian recipes, so on Flo's advice, I decided to tackle Concoction Rice, which has lots of traditional ingredients in it.

Of course, having lots of traditional ingredients in it means that it has lots of things in it not easily obtainable in a semi-rural town in western Massachusetts. Fortunately, a nearby city has this shop:

[photo no longer available]

I went there and got several of the ingredients I needed, including a lovely smoked mackerel--a whole fish. They were all stacked up in the fridge (or freezer? Not sure), and I was told to just reach in and pick one out, so I did. A lovely silvery fish, long and slim. I do love mackerel.

I put everything but the head in to cook.

( behind a cut in case you don't want to see a fish head )

And here it is, nearly done:



I added a little too much water, but it was still **delicious**. I don't know how well I captured the authentic flavor, and I did have one substitution (I used salt pollock instead of dried cod, because I had bought it before going to the African market), but I'm hoping it was more or less right. Anyway, I loved it and will make it again.

Plus, I'm going to get smoked mackerel way more often now. We usually have tinned mackerel about once a week--it would be *wonderful* to have smoked mackerel instead.

I have two new food treasures: One, from mnfaure (thank you my dear!), is Thé des songes, tea of dreams, which is fragrant and ethereal like dreams, but the look of it--black, with bursts of red and gold--is like the surface of a lava lake, so I think of it as lava tea.



And the other, red as blood, red as hot lava, is this bottle of palm oil!



And with this bottle of palm oil, I'm going to make *even more* of Flo Madubike's recipes. I'm going to start with this one, for fried beans.