Ok, so I have been thinking about tapioca a lot lately... mostly because Jenn is successfully trying to overcome her aversion to it. The more that I have thought about it, the more I have come to decide that ist is really a versatile food item.
This summer while in Thailand I visited a cassava plantation with little knowledge as to what cassava was. All I knew before getting onto the farm was that people used it as some sort of food and that it contained cyanide... so I was a little confused. Later I found out that some parts are used in animal feed, some parts are used as human feed, and some parts are used to regenerate the plant. The part that goes to humans can be transformed into what we know of as tapioca.
Up until relatively recently my only experiences with tapioca included soley vanilla tapioca pudding, made when the milk in the house was getting too old. I loved the tapioca pudding, but to me it was what it was and there was nothing else to it. Again while in Thailand this past summer I had the ability to taste some of the Thai uses for it. Mostly what I encountered was still in the dessert arena but without the pudding consistency of pudding and with the addition of such foods as mung beans, corn, and of course coconut products. Very delicious!
Earlier this fall I tried to an idea that I saw on Tastespotting that was a pomegranite and coconut tapioca pudding. Coconut milk was used instead of regular milk and whole pomegranite seeds were mixed in after heating. It was incredible! Everything included in there was something that I love to eat and the flavors matched very appropriately. Jenn even said that she liked it!
On a seperate occasion Meg decided to make beef stew. I have never been much of a fan of beef stew and so I was a little bit apprehensive about it. After tasting the tomatoey sweetness of the stew, I discovered that I could too like beef stew! I was very astonished that I liked it and therefore was very curious as to the difference. It was that she used tapioca as a thickener instead of the usual corn starch or flour. It left less of a pasty texture in the mouth.
The versatility of tapioca is something that I had never before thought about. Now my head is swimming. Ranging from being a centerpiece in a dessert or the thickening side kick to another show, tapioca has a lot of potential. Who knew?
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