Cassava powder with green veges spicy for dinner

Cassava powder makes the swallow that carries the meal. Boiling water goes in, it is turned hard against the side of the pot, and it comes out smooth and stretchy — a vehicle for soup rather than a thing you would eat alone.

Cassava itself is remarkable and slightly dangerous. Raw, the root contains compounds that release cyanide; every traditional way of preparing it — soaking, fermenting, grating, drying, frying — exists to drive those off. Generations worked that out long before anyone could explain the chemistry, and the processing is not optional.

The green vegetables beside it do the nutritional heavy lifting. Ugu, spinach or waterleaf, cooked down with pepper, onion and oil until they collapse into something spoonable.