- To tropic suns, to fell barbaric hinds,
- A poor outcast, an alien, did he roam;
- His wife, the partner of his better hours, [590]
- And one sweet infant, chear’d his dismal way.
- Unus’d to labour; yet the orient sun,
- Yet western Phoebus, saw him wield the hoe.
- At first a garden all his wants supplied,
- (For Temperance sat chearful at his board,) [595]
- With yams, cassada,1 and the food of strength,
- Thrice-wholesome tanies:2 while a neighbouring dell,
VER. 596. cassada,] Cassavi, cassava, is called Jatropha by botanists. Its meal makes a wholesome and well-tasted bread, although its juice be poisonous. There is a species of cassada which may be eat with safety, without expressing the juice; this the French call Camagnoc.3 The colour of its root is white, like a parsnip; that of the common kind is of a brownish red, before it is scraped. By coction the cassada-juice becomes an excellent sauce for fish; and the Indians prepare many wholesome dishes from it. I have given it internally mixed with flour without any bad consequences; it did not however produce any of the salutary effects I expected. A good starch is made from it. The stem is knotty, and, being cut into small junks and planted, young sprouts shoot up from each knob. Horses have been poisoned by eating its leaves. The French name it Manihot, Magnoc, and Manioc, and the Spaniards Mandiocha. It is pretended that all creatures but man eat the raw root of the cassada with impunity; and, when dried, that it is a sovereign antidote against venomous bites. A wholesome drink4 is prepared from this root by the Indians, Spaniards, and Portuguese, according to Pineda. There is one species of this plant which the Indians only use, and is by them called Baccacoua.5
VER. 597. tanies:] This wholesome root, in some of the islands, is called Edda: Its botanical name is Arum maximum AEgyptiacum. There are three species of tanies, the blue, the scratching, and that which is commonly roasted. The blossoms of all three are very fragrant, in a morning or evening. The young leaves, as well as the spiral stalks which support the flower, are eaten by Negroes as a salad.6 The root makes a good broth in dysenteric complaints. They are seldom so large as the yam, but most people think them preferable in point of taste.
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Cassava (Manihot esculenta), also known as manioc, yuca, and bitter cassava, which was domesticated in South America thousands of years ago and then brought to the Caribbean islands by Amerindians. One of the most important food sources for Amerindians during the precolonial era; subsequently adopted by Africans and Europeans in the Caribbean as well. Nevertheless, cassava is highly poisonous: its roots, which are the parts of the plant that are prepared for consumption, contain cyanide, and the raw root is poisonous to human beings. Cassava has advantages that offset its toxic nature, however: it can grow in poor soils and conditions, one planting produces several harvests, and the roots can be stored in the ground for a long time without spoiling. The root’s poison also can be neutralized by proper processing: Amerindians and other early Caribbean consumers usually processed cassava root by grating it and then pressing the poisonous juice out of it to make a flour, which could be eaten as a porridge or turned into various cakes or breads (Higman 61-69). ↩︎
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The tanie, tannia, or yautia is technically the species Xanthosoma sagittifolium, but it was often confused with taro or eddo (Colocasia esculenta). Xanthosoma sagittifolium has a native range extending from Costa Rica to tropical South America. Colocasia esculenta originated in southeastern or southern Central Asia (Higman 82-86). ↩︎
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Cultivated varieties of cassava are classed into two groups: sweet and bitter. Sweet cassava is not poisonous and can be eaten without the processing that bitter cassava requires. Although it is more dangerous to eat, bitter cassava historically has been cultivated more than sweet cassava, perhaps because it has a higher yield and because it makes a better flour (Higman 62). ↩︎
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There are reports from the colonial Caribbean of cassava being made into a drink called perino (Higman 69). ↩︎
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Jean Antoine Bruletout de Préfontaine’s Maison rustique, à l’usage des habitans de la partie de la France équinoxiale connue sous le nom de Cayenne (1763) also mentions a kind of cassava called Baccacoua that is consumed only by the Amerindians in Cayenne, a French colony on the northeastern coast of South America (now the name of the capital of French Guiana). ↩︎
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Tannia and taro leaves were primarily consumed by the enslaved because they contained needle-like crystals of calcium oxalate. These crystals irritated the mouth and throat when eaten, and the leaves had to be boiled for a long period of time to reduce what was known as the “scratching” effect (Higman 86-87). ↩︎