Page "Tapioca" Paragraph 41

In Brazilian cuisine, tapioca is used for different types of meals.

In biju ( or beiju ), the tapioca is moistened, strained through a sieve to become a coarse flour, then sprinkled onto a hot griddle or pan, where the heat makes the starchy grains fuse into a tortilla, which is often sprinkled with coconut.

Then it may be buttered and eaten as a toast ( its most common use as a breakfast dish ), or it may be filled or topped with either doces ( sweet ) or salgados ( savory ) ingredients, which define the kind of meal the tapioca is used for: breakfast, afternoon tea or dessert.

Choices range from butter, cheese, chocolate, bananas with condensed milk, chocolate with bananas, to various forms of meats and served warm.

A traditional dessert called sagu is also made from pearl tapioca cooked with cinnamon and cloves in red wine.

This root is known with differents names in the whole Country.

Tapioca in the North, Mandioca, aipin, Macaixeira in the South, etc ...

In Colombia and Venezuela, arepas may be made with tapioca flour rather than cornmeal.

Tapioca arepas probably predate cornmeal arepas ; among traditional cultures of the Caribbean the name for them is casabe.

In Peru, tapioca is known as yuca and is eaten mostly boiled as a side dish in the Amazon and fried with Papa a la Huancaina sauce as a snack when drinking alcohol.