Cassava Harvesting And Processing

So today we went to the farm to harvest some cassava, as the one (fufu) we had was almost finished. Just like I stated in my last post, my people are majoring in cassava plantation, together with other crops.

Had to go with my mom, as I didn't know the exact location of the farm — I was not around when the farm was done. The farm is about two years old. So it has matured enough for harvest.

Cassava harvesting is very easy. You only have to cut the stem at a certain height and pull. In some cases where some get stuck in the ground, you will have to dip with the cutlass.

While several products can be gotten from cassava, the target product from this one is fufu, though some cassava were set aside for abacha — African salad.

For this product — fufu, to be gotten, the cassava has to undergo the following processing procedures: peeling, washing, fermentation, drying and cooking.

For the sake of this post, I would be focusing on the first three of the processing steps — as I would talk about the other ones in a later post.

After the cassava has been harvested, it is then taken home where it will be peeled and washed. The pictures below show the peeling stage by my dad, mom and myself.

During this stage, it is a conventional thing to cut pieces — to enable a compacted arrangement during the fermentation stage.

After peeling, the next stage is to wash it thoroughly with water. Of course this takes off all the stains on the cassava.

The next stage is the fermentation stage. The essence of this stage is to get rid of toxic substances like cyanogenic glycosides present in fresh cassava. Aside from this, fermentation gives cassave distincts characteristics, resulting to the different varieties of cassava. The fermentation process also plays roles in the type of products gotten from cassava.

For fufu production, the fermentation process used is the submerged fermentation. Which involves soaking the whole peeled and cut cassava roots in water for about 4 to 5 days. After which it would be sieved and dried.