Cassava flour or cassava starch is an essential ingredient for preparing mbeju, Paraguayan casserole, among other traditional Christmas dishes in Paraguay, and its dough should have a fine consistency, similar to corn starch.
Cassava is a domesticated tuber species, a crop originally domesticated nearly 8,000-10,000 years ago, in southern Brazil, passing through Paraguay, and eastern Bolivia along the southwestern border of the Amazon basin. Today, cassava is a primary caloric source in tropical regions worldwide and the sixth most important cultivated plant globally.
The progenitor of cassava exists today and is adapted to the ecotones of forests and savannas. The domestication process improved the size and yield of its tubers and increased the rate of photosynthesis and seed functionality through repeated cycles of clonal propagation; wild cassava cannot reproduce via stem cuttings.
Archaeological macroscopic evidence of cassava has not been identified in the under-researched Amazon basin, partly because root crops do not preserve well. The identification of the Amazon as the origin was based on genetic studies of cultivated cassava and its various possible progenitors, determining that the Amazon rainforest was the wild form of the current cassava plant.
Starch from cassava has been found in north-central Colombia about 7,500 years ago, and in Panama at the Aguadulce Refuge around 6,900 years ago. Pollen grains of cultivated cassava have been discovered at archaeological sites in Belize and the Gulf Coast of Mexico between 5,800 and 4,500 B.C., and in Puerto Rico between 3,300 and 2,900 years ago. Therefore, scholars can confidently say that domestication in the Amazon must have occurred before 7,500 years ago.
Today, there are numerous species of cassava and yucca worldwide, and researchers are still working to differentiate them, but recent studies support the idea that they all descend from a single domestication event in the Amazon basin. Domestic cassava has more roots and a higher tannin content in the leaves. Traditionally, cassava is cultivated in field cycles and slash-and-burn agriculture, where its flowers are pollinated by insects and its seeds dispersed by ants.
The members of the Maya civilization cultivated root crops, and cassava may have been a staple food in some parts of the Maya world. Cassava pollen has been found in the Maya region dating back to the late Archaic period, and most Maya groups studied in the 20th century cultivated cassava in their fields. Excavations at Ceren, a Maya village from the Classic period destroyed (and preserved) by a volcanic eruption, identified cassava plants within the gardens. Planting beds for cassava were found about 170 meters from the village.
The cassava beds at Ceren date from around the year 600. They consisted of ridge fields with tubers planted at the top of the ridges, allowing water to drain and flow through the channels between the ridges (called streets). Archaeologists found five cassava tubers in the field that had been lost during the 1960s.
