Making cassava bread: a celebration of Garifuna culture
At this time last year, before the month of November became the time to remember Mitch, Belizeans were collectively looking forward to Garifuna Settlement Day on the nineteenth. This year, the event hasn’t been getting its usual, or well deserved coverage and News Five would like to do something about that. So, tonight we invite you to join Lauren Burgess in a celebration of Garifuna culture and a little lesson in making cassava bread.
Lauren Burgess
“Mmmm, this tastes “splenditiously” delicious. Right now I am at Sabal Farm which is outside of Dangriga and this family has been making cassava bread for the last fourteen years. I want you to stay with me and check out the whole process of how cassava bread is made. Look out tortilla, look out roti, cassava bread is on the rise.”
Q: “So Mrs. Sabal, who started up this business along with you?”
Recarda Sabal
“My husband.”
Q: “Your husband, and it has been fourteen years since you have been doing it right?”
Recarda Sabal
“Right.”
Q: “How many generations are working here right now?”
Recarda Sabal
“Right now we’re working here at the rate of three generations.”
Q: “That is you, your children and your grandchildren?”
Recarda Sabal
“Yes.”
Q: “Before your started this business, where did people in Dangriga used to get cassava bread?”
Recarda Sabal
“Well, people got cassava bread from each other because most of the people got a little bit of fields where they could supply themselves. So after Hurricane Hattie we decided that we are going to “bounce it” and then we started making fields from five acres. Right now we have thirty acres.”
Q: “Cyril, what is the first step in making cassava bread? Right now we’re in the fields and I would like you to tell me what you are going to do here.”
Cyril Sabal
“Right now we are going to cut off the sticks and then uproot the tubers. After we uproot the tubers you put it in a bag and then you carry it to the shed.
This one can only be eaten as bread, as the cassava bread. You have the sweet one which can be eaten in boil-up. (with cassava in hand) That’s the brown portion from where it begins to get soft; this portion is hard. Just about here where it begins to get soft can be grated in the shed and produced to make cassava bread.”
(In the shed)
Q: “So what is happening here?”
Cyril Sabal
“The peeling is taking place. When we come in from the fields in the morning normally it amounts to about a thousand pounds. You bring it and throw it down on the floor here. On the floor here about six people sit around and peel that thousand pounds. It will take them about four hours to completely peel them. When the peeling is done it is thrown into the bowl where it is washed and placed into this grilling bowl. So normally this bowl would be full and this bowl would be full.”
Q: “Cyril could you tell me what this machine is all about and how this machine come about?”
Cyril Sabal
“This machine grates the tubers after they have been peeled and washed and placed in the grill bowl.
This machine was built by my father in 1981 and it was his brainchild. There are other machines like this around the place but not as efficient as this one. It takes this machine eighteen to thirty minutes to grater about a thousand pounds under this condition because right now the teeth are kind of old. If we would put new teeth on, it would take about eight or twelve minutes to grater a thousand pounds.”
Q: “So after it has been grated and collected there what is the next step?”
Cyril Sabal
“You put it in this wowla, they call it. This is the instrument that dries it. This does the drying process.” (demonstration)
Q: “After you put it in what do you do with it? Do you put it to lie down or hang it up?”
Cyril Sabal
“You hang it up and then the juice drains down to the bottom.”
Q: “So tell me why you sit up here?” (sitting)
Cyril Sabal
“By sitting up here you add force by drawing out more of the liquid faster.”
Lauren Burgess
“Well you could employ me to sit down here because I could “sata” right here.”
Cyril Sabal
“Well the more weight you put the faster it goes.”
Q: “Well it is really going fast cause if I sit here for five minutes it is supposed to be dry, dry, dry by the time I get up right?”
Cyril Sabal
“For sure! When it comes out of the wowla, this is the way it looks. It takes the shape of the wowla. This will be left for overnight for approximately twelve hours. The breeze goes through it and it goes through a slight fermentation process.”
Lauren Burgess
“I can smell it like it is fermenting.”
Cyril Sabal
“The next morning they would sieve this material and it becomes like flour. Again my father built this and this is the only one in the country.”
Q: “So nobody else has a siever like this?”
Cyril Sabal
“Nobody else has a siever like this. This part you have to select the right amount to put on the comal to bake to get the right thickness and the size.”
Q: “Where do you get those big comals?”
Cyril Sabal
“Well we have to actually get a flat sheet of iron, make it ourselves – have a welder cut it out.”
Q: “I never saw a comal so big yet. So when it reaches at this point, this is when the baking starts?”
Cyril Sabal
“Yes.”
Q: “Why is she beating it?”
Cyril Sabal
“She is beating it to compress it; to compact it so that it holds up together. You sprinkle just a little bit on it to kill the brown parts, to get it kind of whitish.”
Q: “To fix up its face?”
Cyril Sabal
“Right!”
Q: “So now she has to cut off the edge and pretty it up then cut it up. Why do you have to cut it now when it’s hot?”
Cyril Sabal
“Because when it gets cold it will get hard and to try to get it to size when it is hard, it will be brittly, so you would not get it with that smooth edge.”
Q: “It would break up, right?”
Cyril Sabal
“Yes.”
Q: “What do you do after taking it off the comal?”
Cyril Sabal
“You leave it to cool before it must be packaged.”
Q: “You will let me try a piece right?”
Cyril Sabal
“Sure.”
Lauren Burgess
“Let me try a little piece. (tasting) Mmm good!”
Cyril Sabal
“Well it certainly has to be good because it is all natural. It has nothing added to it; it is just pure cassava. So it surely has to be good”
Q: “Do you think the day will come when cassava would sell better than tortilla?”
Cyril Sabal
“Sure because it preserves longer. While the tortilla only last about twenty four hours, the cassava lasts longer.”
Lauren Burgess
“Cassava bread really goes good with ceri and for thousands of years we have had people eating cassava. Now we have cassava bread and all different kinds of products out of cassava. Try it, believe me, you will like it.”
