How To: Yucca

Working on a farm has proved to be an excellent learning experience. I am able to learn about many of the foods that I so commonly eat in the US; not thinking twice about where they come from. 

Walking through the farm, we pass so many different things- huge orange trees, lime trees, lemon trees, mangoes, papayas, bananas, grapefruit, guavas, maraquya, avacado, pineapple, mandarin, sweet potato, yucca, coffee, cacao, macadamia nuts and others that I don't know the name of. 

Today, we went to harvest some yucca from a friend's farm and the following is an 19-step instruction manual for preparing a yucca dish.

Step 1: Cut down yucca trees from the neighbor's farm

Step 2: Clear your field with the machete

Step 3: Hack away at the dry ground with a dull shovel to make holes

Step 4: Cut the tree into smaller sticks

Step 5: Put sticks into the holes, cover

Step 6: Wait a year

Step 7: Loosen the ground around the tree with a machete

Step 8: Harness your inner-hulk and attempt to pull the root from the ground

Step 9: Ask for help from someone who actually knows what they're doing

Step 10: Carry the heavy sacks of yucca to the house and feed most of it to the pigs

Step 11: Peel the yucca with a machete

Step 12: Wash in dirty water

Step 13: Shred the yucca into pulp

Step 14: Squeeze the liquid out of the pulp 

Step 15: Throw the pulp at the gringa

Step 16: Mix with onions, a few eggs, cheese, salt, and cilantro

Step 17: Fry

Step 18: Enjoy

Step 19: Wash yucca out of your hair