Cassava Bread and Farine

Bitter cassava contains enough cyanogenic compound to kill, and the process that makes it safe was worked out by the Kalinago and Arawak peoples long before Europeans arrived: grate the root, press the liquid out, dry the meal, and bake it. Saint Lucia still does it. Cassava bread is baked flat on a griddle into a dense round eaten with anything, and farine is the coarser dried meal eaten as a porridge or stirred into soup. Estates around Soufrière demonstrate the whole sequence, and roadside sellers on the east coast sell the bread by the round.

What you actually see

• The pressing - squeezing the toxic liquid out of the grated root.
• The griddle baking - flat rounds cooked on a hot plate.
• Farine - the coarse dried meal, eaten as porridge or in soup.
• The indigenous inheritance - a technique older than the colony.

When to go

Year-round. Estate demonstrations near Soufrière run through the day. Creole Day at the end of October is when it is made in the street. Roadside sellers on the east coast have it most days.

Honest expectations

Bitter cassava is genuinely toxic until processed, and this is not something to attempt yourself from a raw root. The bread is dense and dry on its own and is meant to be eaten with something. Estate demonstrations are arranged for visitors, though the process shown is real.

Nearby

Fond Doux and Morne Coubaril near Soufrière demonstrate it; east coast roadsides sell it.