Cassava flour (farinha) processing
process / process-cassava-flour-processing
キャッサバ粉（ファリーニャ）の製造
Cassava flour (farinha) processing is a process that turns roots of bitter cassava varieties into coarse flour (farinha) or starch (fécula) through peeling, grating (ralação), pressing (prensagem, using a manual press, prensa manual, in modern small-scale agricultural processing or a woven basket-like press called a tipiti in traditional Amazonian Indigenous practice), crumbling (esfarelamento), sieving (peneiramento), moisture removal in an oven (enxugamento), and roasting (torração). The liquid separated by pressing is used in food and drink after heating, including as tucupi.
Photographs (captions in Japanese)
Grated cassava being pressed with a tipiti (a woven basket-like press) at an agricultural processing project in Óbidos, Pará, Brazil. The pressing (prensagem) step in the chain that processes the roots of bitter cassava into farinha (coarse flour).
Shown: Processing step derived from Manihot esculenta (bitter cassava)Part / state: Pressing step using a tipiti (a woven basket-like press)
Photo: Incra/Oeste do Pará / CC BY 2.0 / original image / ledger's original image
Scope and provenance of the photo
Identification: Identified as labelled in the source.
Image shown: The full-size file from Wikimedia Commons. No cropping or color changes by NIGAMI LAB. For display, a WebP capped at 1200 px wide is served; the ledger's original image can be checked from the link above.
On this page (6 sections)
Reading the bitterness
Processing roots of bitter cassava (mandioca-brava) into flour is recorded at a small-scale agricultural processing facility in the Recôncavo region of Bahia, Brazil, as a sequence of peeling (descascamento), grating (ralação), pressing (prensagem), crumbling (esfarelamento), sieving (peneiramento), moisture removal in an oven (enxugamento), and roasting (torração). Grating crushes the roots with a rotating steel-bladed cylinder, while sieving removes fibers and evens out particle size using galvanized mesh with a mesh count of 26–28. Moisture removal is carried out at 180–250°C and roasting at a gentler 120–150°C. The record also notes that coarser flour is generally found outside this region.
The grated mass (massa) is wrapped in nylon cloth and placed on stacked wooden lattice frames (estrado) in a manual hydraulic press (prensa manual) to separate the expressed liquid (manipueira). The practice record from Bahia adds that this liquid can be used as animal feed, fertilizer, or for irrigation. Pressing lowers the flour’s moisture content and is a key stage leading to the subsequent steps of crumbling, sieving, and drying in the oven.
In contrast, Indigenous communities in the Amazon region use a cylindrical press about 2 m long, called a "tipiti", woven from plant fibers such as cipó arumã and palmeira jacitara. It hangs from a handle at the top, and force applied below stretches the cylinder and squeezes liquid through the weave; its manufacture is recorded as requiring about 16 stems (equivalent to about 65 strips). In the case of the Canela people of Maranhão state, men were recorded as making it and women as using it. This is a traditional pressing technique distinct from the modern manual press in Bahia.
The liquid separated by pressing with a tipiti is processed through heating into tucupi, a soup-like seasoning liquid used in Amazonian cuisine. The source does not give technical details such as heating temperature or time, but a general-audience article on the Amazon region records an account of making the liquid edible through heating rather than using the raw expressed liquid directly.
Sources for this overview
Processamento de aipim e mandioca-brava
Checked for this overview: Confirmed the description of the steps from peeling through roasting and their temperature ranges. / Confirmed the description of pressing with a manual press and uses for the expressed liquid.
Conheça o tipiti, tecnologia indígena de uso secular na Amazônia
Checked for this overview: Confirmed the description of the tipiti’s structure, materials, and number of stems needed to make it. / Confirmed the description that the pressed liquid becomes tucupi after heating.
Tipiti (registro de acervo museológico)
Checked for this overview: Confirmed the record of the division between making and using it by gender among the Canela people.
Other names: tipiti (pt)
Structured claims — open a section to read each claim's confidence, evidence and limits
How processing and cooking change it (4)
Scope: The Recôncavo Baiano region (Bahia state, Brazil).
Note: A description of a small-scale agricultural processing facility in the Recôncavo region of Bahia, Brazil.
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process-cassava-flour-processing —comprises→ (the claim sentence above)Scope: Small-scale agricultural processing facilities in the Recôncavo Baiano region (Bahia state, Brazil).
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process-cassava-flour-processing —uses→ (the claim sentence above)Scope: Indigenous communities of the Amazon region (Brazil)
Note: A traditional press of the Amazon region, distinct from the modern manual press (prensa manual) of Bahia state.
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process-cassava-flour-processing —has_variant→ (the claim sentence above)Scope: The Amazon region (Brazil).
Note: Records only the account of making the liquid edible by heating, without discussing quantitative values for safety or toxicity.
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process-cassava-flour-processing —provides_material_for→ (the claim sentence above)