Читать книгу The Art of Making Good Wholesome Bread of Wheat, Oats, Rye, Barley and Other Farinaceous Grains - Friedrich Christian Accum - Страница 10

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In the Caribbee Islands they make bread of a very poisonous root (Jatropa Maniat), rendered wholesome by the extraction of its acrid juice, which the Indians use for poisoning their arrows. A tea-spoonful of the juice is sufficient to poison a man.

The root of the maniat, after being crashed, scraped clean, and grated in a tub, is enclosed in a sack of rushes, of very loose texture, which is suspended upon a stick placed upon two wooden forks. To the bottom of this sack a heavy vessel is suspended, which, by drawing the sack, presses the grated root and receives the juice that flows out of it. When the starch is well exhausted of its juice, it is exposed to smoke in order to dry it; and when well dried it is passed through a sieve. In this state it is termed Casava. It is baked into cakes, by spreading it on hot plates of iron or earth, turning it on both sides, in order to give it a good reddish colour.