CASSAVA

Ca ava bread , conaque , . , are different names given to the starch of the root of the Manioc ( Jatropha Manihot , Linn.), prepared in the following manner in the West Indies, the tropical regions of America, and upon the African coast. The tree belongs to the natural family of the euphorbiaceæ . The roots are washed, and reduced to a pulp by means of a rasp or grater. The pulp is put into coarse strong canvas bags, and thus submitted to the action of a powerful pre , by which it parts with most of its noxious juice (used by the Indians for poisoning the barbs of their arrows). As the active principle of this juice is volatile, it is easily di ipated by baking the squeezed cakes of pulp upon a plate of hot iron. Fifty pounds of the fresh juice, when distilled, afford, at first, three ounces of a poisonous water, po e ing an intolerably offensive smell; of which, 35 drops being administered to a slave convicted of the crime of poisoning, caused his death in the course of six minutes, amid horrible convulsions. [16] [16] Memoir of Dr. Fermin, communicated to the Academy of Berlin, concerning experiments made at Cayenne, upon the juice of the Manioc. The pulp dried in the manner above described concretes into lumps, which become hard and friable as they cool. They are then broken into pieces, and laid out in the sun to dry. In this state they afford a wholesome nutriment, and are habitually used as such by the negroes, as also by many white people. These cakes constitute the only provisions laid in by the natives, in their voyages upon the Amazons. Boiled in water with a little beef or mutton they form a kind of soup similar to that of rice. The Ca ava cakes sent to Europe (which I have eaten with pleasure) are composed almost entirely of starch, along with a few fibres of the ligneous matter. It may be purified by diffusion through warm water, pa ing the milky mixture through a linen cloth, evaporating the strained liquid over the fire, with constant agitation. The starch di olved by the heat, thickens as the water evaporates, but on being stirred, it becomes granulated, and must be finally dried in a proper stove. Its specific gravity is 1·530—that of the other species of starch. The product obtained by this treatment is known in commerce under the name of tapioca ; and being starch very nearly pure, is often prescribed by physicians as an aliment of easy digestion. A tolerably good imitation of it is made by heating, stirring, and drying potato starch in a similar way. The expre ed juice of the root of manioc contains in suspension a very fine fecula, which it deposits slowly upon the bottom of the ve els. When freed by decantation from the supernatant liquor, washed several times and dried, it forms a beautiful starch, which creaks on pre ure with the fingers. It is called cipipa , in French Guyana; it is employed for many delicate articles of cookery, especially pastry, as also for hair powder, starching linen, . Ca ava flour, as imported, may be distinguished from arrow-root and other kinds of starch, by the appearance of its particles viewed in a microscope. They are spherical, all about 1-1000th of an inch in diameter, and a ociated in groups; those of potato starch are irregular ellipsoids, varying in size from 1-300th to 1-3000th of an inch; those of arrow-root have the same shape nearly, but vary in size from 1-500th to 1-800th of an inch; those of wheat are separate spheres 1-1000th of an inch.