Casabe (Cassava Bread Recipe and History)

En Español Recipe ↆ Video ↆ

Why we ❤️ it

Casabe is one of the oldest dishes in our heritage, it was bequeathed to us by the Taino, the first settlers of the island. Casabe - a crispy flatbread made from cassava (yuca) flour - was at the center of the Taíno diet.

Over 500 years later, casabe is still a popular food in Dominican households, widely available throughout the country over, and reinvented by small businesses that export it to other countries in the Caribbean and Latin America.

What's casabe?

Casabe was one of the staples of the Taino diet. [1] The Taino brought yuca (cassava root) and the knowledge of how to make this flatbread from the mainland. It was a mainstay wherever the Arawak (of which Taino were part) settled.

Casabe is still consumed in modern-day Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, and Venezuela.

"So important was this food to these indigenous people [Taino], that the main god in their pantheon was called Yocahu Vagua Maorocoti, which is roughly translated as 'Our Great Lord of Yuca'". [2]

To make casabe, the yuca has to be peeled, washed, ground up, compressed, sieved, and then finally shaped into large circular molds and baked on a stone hotplate called burén (a Taino word) [2].

This ancient yuca bread is fat-free and rich in fiber, and although not formally certified, yuca is always grown organically. Despite being preservative-free, this yuca bread has a shelf life of up to eight months. It is also a great gluten-free alternative for celiacs.

Read: History of casabe and keeping the tradition alive

How to eat it casabe

Casabe is commonly found in the Northwest and Southwest served with Mambá, the savory peanut butter, or with Habichuelas con dulce, a uniquely Dominican dessert.

As with conventional bread, it can also be eaten at different times of the day in a variety of ways. Most commonly for breakfast, served with coffee or a Café con leche, it is also used to accompany soups and stews.

Other ways to eat casabe include soaking it in water and serving it with fried eggs or avocado. It can also be baked and served with a sprinkle of salt and a drizzle of olive oil. For a light supper, accompany it with a mug of Dominican Hot chocolate drink.

It can also be used as a buffet food with dips, in the same way as tortilla chips, crackers, or pitta bread.

About this recipe

Why write a recipe for it? After all, Dominicans don't make casabe at home. So what possessed us to even try this?

Years ago, a reader (Hi Catherine!) wrote to us about her teaching some friends in Canada how to make casabe. She ended one of the emails in our exchange with, "Taino women would have been proud of me." They sure would, Catherine.

This exchange -- and Catherine's ideas-- inspired us to create our own recipe that could be made at home with modern kitchen implements but inspired by the ancestral way it was made by Taino Indians.

So go ahead, give it a try. And to make things a bit more interesting, we have added two options for flavored casabe that we hope you like.

Buen provecho!

History of casabe and keeping the tradition alive

This part was written in 2003 by Ilana Benady, edited and factchecked by Clara González

When the Spanish first arrived on the island, they soon found that casabe --which they called "the bread of the Indies" [1]-- had advantages over their traditional European bread, in that it has a long shelf life [3] and does not go stale or moldy. For this reason, it is said that the conquest of the Americas was fueled by casabe, taken by the conquistadores from Hispaniola as they continued their push into Mexico and other parts of the continent [4].

"Casabe lady" photo by Pedrito Guzmán. Used with permission.

Up till a few decades ago, casabe production was a dying tradition in the Dominican Republic. The ultimate cottage industry, it was restricted to several very small producers, mainly in the northwest of the country, and distribution and sales beyond the local area were close to nonexistent.

Making commercial quantities is not an easy task using the traditional method, which is more appropriate for producing the amount needed to feed a household.

This Amerindian tradition was revitalized by enterprising producers like Nicolas Almonte of Casabe Guaraganó, who, in the 1970s, adapted this labor-intensive craft to a larger scale process where much of the production is done by machinery. This allows for increased volumes of production.

Now other producers have followed suit, and casabe is being produced on a much larger scale and being distributed to colmados and supermarkets around the country, as well as to overseas markets, especially the United States.

An additional benefit of the increased production is that it employs a significant amount of people - especially women - in rural areas and acts as an incentive to keep people from migrating to the cities or overseas.

Monción has a population of 14,000 and it is estimated that 4,000 or so owe their living directly or indirectly to this industry. Although the Monción area is home to many small and medium-scale producers, they are working together as a casabe producers association in order to promote the product.

The challenge for these producers is to increase the popularity of this grated cassava bread, which is still seen as a "humble" food. The producers also want to develop the image of casabe and turn it into a gourmet product for the domestic and international market.

Many producers are making several varieties, including garlic-flavored casabe, or as a dessert - a sweet casabe filled with guava or pineapple jam, and different sized ones such as 'bite-size' to serve with dips. They also stress its versatility and health benefits as selling points.

References

1. Frank Moya Pons, The Dominican Republic: A National History. Sto. Dgo: First Markus Wiener Publishers, 2006. Page 19.
2. Juan B. Nina, El Origen de la Cocina Dominicana. Sto. Dgo: MedyaByte, 2002. Page 21.
   Tan importante era la yuca para nuestros indígenas, que el dios principal en su panteón recibía el nombre de Yocahu Vagua Maorocoti, que más o menos equivale a "Gran Señor de la Yuca"
3. Hugo Tolentino Dipp, Itinerario Histórico de la Gastronomía dominicana. Sto. Dgo. Amigo del Hogar, 2014. Page 27.
4. The Journal of Gastronomy. California. American Institute of Wine and Food, 1987. Page 47.