The Portuguese language word for manioc is “Mandioca” and is a word originated from the Tupi term “mani-oca”, which means “house of Mani”. “Mani” is a Goddess of the Indigenous legends that provide the food. For Indigenous people in the north, manioc is the basis of alimentation.

The manioc is a species of tuberous plant very used in the north of the country to make several ingredients of the traditional cuisine. Its tubercle milled, dried and roasted in large steel frying pans result in the manioc flour, which in Portuguese is called “farinha”. The liquid extracted from the root is “tucupi”, widely used in the region for the preparation of broths. The leafs, although poisonous, are ground and used to make a typical food known as “maniçoba”, but only after the leafs (already ground) are cooked for seven days in a row to remove the toxicity. From the tuberous root…