Bitter manioc detoxification (tipiti press and cassava bread)
Destoxificación de la yuca amarga (sebucán y casabe)
- Date
- c. 2000 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Parmana, Guárico, Venezuela
- Credited to
- Peoples of the Orinoco and the Caribbean
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Grating, pressing in an extendable woven basket (sebucán or tipiti) and toasting on clay griddles to remove the hydrocyanic acid from bitter manioc. It turned a toxic tuber into a long-lasting bread.
Inferred from the ceramic griddles of Parmana (Roosevelt, 1980), whose exclusive link to manioc is debated.
What it led to
- cassava bread as provisions for canoe voyages
- Taíno settlement of the Antilles
- industrial tapioca and manioc flour