SC - Who thought to eat...

[Stefan li Rous]

Christianna said:  
> My favorite one of these is
>         Tapioca - the poisonous inner pith of a palm tree, it takes 2 or 3
> boilings to loose toxicity.  Who got past the first boil and decided to
> boil it again, after the first one killed someone?

According to Waverly Root in "Food", tapioca is "made from the residue
of the cassiva root" (of which we recently had a conversation here) 
"after it's poisonous prussic acid has been pressed out, by one or 
another of several methods, of which the oldest consists simply of
forcing the residue through small holes in a colander to form the
familar small, white, gelatinous, semi-translucent balls of tapioca."

He also says that the Spaniards were introduced to cassiva root in
the New World when Columbus first reached the West Indies. And they
continued to eat it, but didn't like it, until wheat was imported 
into the New World.

Which palm tree are you thinking of?    

- -- 
Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:
         http://lg_photo.home.texas.net/florilegium/index.html ****
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