cassareep
{{Short description|Seasoning made from cassava root}}
Cassareep is a thick black liquid made from cassava root, often with additional spices, which is used as a base for many sauces and especially in Guyanese pepperpot. Besides use as a flavoring and browning agent, it is commonly regarded as a food preservative although laboratory testing is inconclusive.
Production
File:Manihot esculenta dsc07325.jpg
Cassareep is made from the juice of the bitter cassava root, which is poisonous, as it contains acetone cyanohydrin, a compound which decomposes to the highly toxic hydrogen cyanide on contact with water.{{cite journal |author1=Aregheore E. M. |author2=Agunbiade O. O. | title=The toxic effects of cassava (manihot esculenta grantz) diets on humans: a review. | journal=Vet. Hum. Toxicol.| year=1991 | volume=33 | issue=3 | pages=274–275 | pmid=1650055 }} Hydrogen cyanide, traditionally called "prussic acid", is volatile and quickly dissipates when heated.{{Cite book
| title = Meehans' monthly: a magazine of horticulture, botany and kindred subjects, Volumes 11-12
| publisher = Thomas Meehan & Sons
| year = 1901
| page = 108
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=nqnNAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA107
}} Nevertheless, improperly cooked cassava has been blamed for a number of deaths.{{cite journal |author1=White W. L. B. |author2=Arias-Garzon D. I. |author3=McMahon J. M. |author4=Sayre R. T. | title=Cyanogenesis in Cassava : The Role of Hydroxynitrile Lyase in Root Cyanide Production | journal=Plant Physiol. | year= 1998 | volume=116 | issue= 4 | pmid= 9536038 | pages=1219–1225 | pmc= 35028 | doi = 10.1104/pp.116.4.1219}} Indigenous peoples in Guyana reportedly made an antidote by steeping chili peppers in rum.
To make cassareep, the juice is boiled until it is reduced by half in volume,{{Cite journal
| last = Jackson
| first = J. R.
| title = New Edibles
| journal = Food Journal
| volume=2
| year = 1872
| page = 372-378 [375]
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=R3kBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA375
}} to the consistency of molasses{{Cite book
| last = Nicholls
| first = Henry Alfred Alford
| title = A text-book of tropical agriculture
| publisher = Macmillan
| year = 1906
| page = [https://archive.org/details/atextbooktropic00nichgoog/page/n308 278]
| url = https://archive.org/details/atextbooktropic00nichgoog
}} and flavored with spices—including cloves, cinnamon, salt, sugar, and cayenne pepper.{{Cite book
| last = Harris
| first = Dunstan A.
| title = Island Cooking: Recipes from the Caribbean
| publisher = Ten Speed Press
| year = 2003
| page = 138
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=qqK1EzO00oIC&pg=PA138
| isbn = 978-1-58008-501-4}} Traditionally, cassareep was boiled in a soft pot, the actual "pepper pot", which would absorb the flavors and also impart them (even if dry) to foods such as rice and chicken cooked in it.{{Cite book
| last = Wood
| first = John George
| title = Man and his handiwork
| publisher = Society for promoting Christian knowledge
| year = 1886
| pages = 455–56
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=mAUPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA455
}}
Most cassareep is exported from Guyana.{{Cite news
| last = Moore
| first = Wavery Ann
| title = Taste: To Market
| newspaper = St. Petersburg Times
| page = 1.E
| date = 2005-12-07
| url = https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sptimes/access/938197691.html?dids=938197691:938197691&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Dec+07%2C+2005&author=WAVENEY+ANN+MOORE&pub=St.+Petersburg+Times&desc=HAPPY+HERITAGE+Series%3A+TASTE%3B+TO+MARKET&pqatl=google
| archive-url = https://archive.today/20130131185106/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sptimes/access/938197691.html?dids=938197691:938197691&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Dec+07,+2005&author=WAVENEY+ANN+MOORE&pub=St.+Petersburg+Times&desc=HAPPY+HERITAGE+Series:+TASTE;+TO+MARKET&pqatl=google
| url-status = dead
| archive-date = January 31, 2013
| access-date = 2009-07-11}} The natives of Guyana traditionally brought the product to town in bottles,{{Cite book
| last = Dalton
| first = Henry G.
| title = The History of British Guiana: Comprising a General Description of the Colony (1855)
| publisher = Adamant Media Corporation (reprint)
| year = 2005
| page = 185
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8nM8-MbduHgC&pg=PA184
| isbn = 978-1-4021-8865-7}} and it is available on the US market in bottled form.{{Cite book
| last = Herbst
| first = Sharon Tyler
| title = The new food lover's companion: comprehensive definitions of nearly 6,000 food, drink, and culinary terms
| publisher = Barron's Educational Series
| year = 2001
| page = [https://archive.org/details/newfoodloverscom00herb/page/105 105]
| url = https://archive.org/details/newfoodloverscom00herb/page/105
| isbn = 978-0-7641-1258-4
| url-access = registration
}} Though the cassava root traveled from Brazil to Africa, where the majority of cassava is grown, there is no production of cassareep in Africa.{{Cite book
| last = Ucko
| first = Peter
|author2=G. Dimbledy
| title = The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals
| publisher = Aldine Transaction
| year = 2007
| page = 183
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=6lY9Q4vnrCEC&pg=PA183
| isbn = 978-0-202-36169-7}}
Culinary use
Cassareep is used for two distinct goals, that originate from two important aspects of the ingredient: its particular flavor, and its preservative quality.
Cassareep is essential in the preparation of pepperpot, and gives the dish its "distinctive bittersweet flavor."{{Cite book
| last = Kaufman
| first = Cheryl Davidson
| title = Cooking the Caribbean Way
| publisher = Twenty-First Century Books
| year = 2002
| page = 36
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=T7AcwLmcy_AC&pg=PA36
| isbn = 978-0-8225-4103-5}} Cassareep can also be used as an added flavoring to dishes, "imparting upon them the richness and flavour of strong beef-soup."
A peculiar quality of cassareep, which works as an antiseptic, is that it allows food to be kept "on the back of the stove" for indefinite lengths of time,{{Cite book
| last = Verrill
| first = Alpheus Hyatt
|author2=Otis Warren Barrett
|author2-link=Otis Warren Barrett
| title = Foods America gave the world: the strange, fascinating and often romantic histories of many native American food plants, their origin and other interesting and curious facts concerning them
| publisher = L.C. Page
| year = 1937
| page = 64
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=lIlCAAAAIAAJ&q=cassareep
}} as long as additional cassareep is added every time meat is added. According to legend, Betty Mascoll of Grenada had a pepperpot that was maintained like this for more than a century.{{Cite book
| last = Harris
| first = Jessica B.
| title = Beyond gumbo: Creole fusion food from the Atlantic Rim
| publisher = Simon and Schuster
| year = 2003
| page = [https://archive.org/details/beyondgumbocreol0000harr/page/226 226]
| url = https://archive.org/details/beyondgumbocreol0000harr
| url-access = registration
| isbn = 978-0-684-87062-5}} Dutch planters in Suriname reportedly had pepperpots in daily use that they kept cooking for many years, as did "businessmen's clubs" in the Caribbean.{{Cite book
| last = Miller
| first = Sally
| title = Contemporary Caribbean Cooking
| publisher = Miller Publishing
| year = 2008
| page = 124
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=2XjV0kPhngoC&pg=PT115
| isbn = 978-976-8079-75-6}}
Medical application
The antiseptic qualities of cassareep are well known—so well known, in fact, that the Reverend J.G. Wood, who published his Wanderings in South America in 1879, was criticized for not mentioning the "antiseptic properties of cassava juice (cassareep), which enables the Indian on a canoe voyage to take with him a supply of meat for several days."{{Cite journal
| title = Charles Waterton
| journal = Littell's Little Age
| volume = 145
| issue = 1870
| pages = 131–49
| date = 1880-04-17
| url = http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=livn;cc=livn;rgn=full%20text;idno=livn0145-3;didno=livn0145-3;view=image;seq=00137;node=livn0145-3%3A1
| access-date = 2009-11-12}} p. 149.
In the mid- to late nineteenth century, as reports of adventures by English explorers became widely read in England, statements about cassareep and its antiseptic qualities became easily available; an early example was a publication in The Pharmaceutical Journal from 1847,{{Cite journal
| last = Professor Attfield
| title = Analysis of Bitter Cassava Juice, and Experiments in Elucidation of its Supposed Antiseptic Properties
| journal = Year-book of Pharmacy
| pages = 382–85
| year = 1870
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=DOo3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA382
| access-date = 2009-11-12}} p. 382. and similar references can be found throughout the late nineteenth century, such as in the work of Irish naturalist and explorer Thomas Heazle Parke{{Cite book
| last = Parke
| first = Thomas Heazle
| author-link = Thomas Heazle Parke
| title = My personal experiences in equatorial Africa: as medical officer of the Emin Pasha relief expedition
| publisher = C. Scribner
| year = 1891
| page = [https://archive.org/details/mypersonalexper00parkgoog/page/n554 485]
| url = https://archive.org/details/mypersonalexper00parkgoog
}} and in pharmaceutical{{Cite journal
| last = Holmes
| first = E.M.
| title = Some of the Drug Exhibits at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition
| journal = The Pharmaceutical Journal
| volume = 17
| pages = 405–11
| publisher = Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain
| year = 1887
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=6-ZLKHNCbHoC&pg=PA411
| access-date = 2009-11-12}} p. 411 and trade journals.{{Cite journal
| title = Extracts from Mr. Holmes's Paper on some of the Drug Exhibits at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition
| journal = Timehri
| pages = 156–60
| publisher = Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society of British Guiana
| year = 1887| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=KK03AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA159
| access-date = 2009-11-12}} Professor Attfield, professor of practical chemistry for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, however, in the 1870 edition of the Year-book of Pharmacy, claimed that his laboratory studies proved no effectiveness whatsoever.{{Cite journal
| last = Professor Attfield
| title = Analysis of Bitter Cassava Juice, and Experiments in Elucidation of its Supposed Antiseptic Properties
| journal = Year-book of Pharmacy
| pages = 382–85
| year = 1870
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=DOo3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA382
| access-date = 2009-11-12}} Still, pharmaceutical journals and handbooks began to report of the possible use of cassareep, and suggested it might be helpful in the treatment of, for instance, eye afflictions such as corneal ulcers{{Cite journal
| last =
| first =
| title = Cassareep: A New Remedy for the Treatment of Corneal Ulcers and Other Infectious Diseases of the Eye
| journal = Medical Record
| volume = 54
| publisher = W. Wood
| year = 1898
| page = [https://archive.org/details/medicalrecord02stedgoog/page/n782 771]
| url = https://archive.org/details/medicalrecord02stedgoog
| last = Gillman
| first = R.W.
| title = Ophthalmology and Otology: Cassaripe, A New Remedy for Corneal Ulcers
| journal = The Medical Age
| volume = 16
| page = 544
| year = 1898| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=vSygAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA544
| access-date = 2009-11-12}}{{Cite journal
| last = Risley
| first = S.D.
| title = New Treatment of Ulcers and Other Infectious Diseases of the Eye by Cassareep
| journal = Ophthalmic Record
| volume = 7
| page = 460
| year = 1898
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=uloCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA460
| access-date = 2009-11-12}}{{Cite journal
| title = Cassareep: A New Treatment of Ulcers and Other Infectious Diseases of the Eye
| journal = Medical Record
| page = 771
| publisher = W. Wood
| year = 1898
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=hhcCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA771
| access-date = 2009-11-12}} and conjunctivitis.{{Cite book
| last = Dorland
| first = William Alexander Newman
| title = Dorland's illustrated medical dictionary
| publisher = Saunders
| year = 1914
| page = 187
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=pMe3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA187
}}
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
Further reading
- {{Cite book
| last = Harris
| first = Dunstan A.
| title = Island Cooking: Recipes from the Caribbean
| publisher = Ten Speed Press
| year = 2003
| page = 138
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=qqK1EzO00oIC&pg=PA138
| isbn = 978-1-58008-501-4}} Cassareep recipe.