Tucupí Sauce Is Made From An Unexpectedly Poisonous Root Vegetable

Even in an increasingly accessible world, regions of the Amazon remain remote and hard-to-reach. Perhaps this is why Amazonian dishes and ingredients are still widely unknown. Luckily, restaurants in South American cities like Bogota, Colombia, and São Paulo, Brazil are beginning to incorporate the region's Indigenous culinary traditions into their menus.

This has brought attention to delicious dishes like the tender pirarucú (one of the largest freshwater fish species on the planet), tapioca (cassava granules that are heated to form a crepe-like roll), sweet fruits like the , and tucupí, a sauce whose umami flavor can elevate almost any dish. Out of these, the latter may be the most interesting. Tucupí is extracted from the bitter cassava (also known as yuca or manioc) root, which contains high levels of toxic cyanide, a chemical responsible for .



This traditional Amazonian sauce . Boiling it removes the poison, and makes it perfectly safe to eat. But since tucupí is not widely commercialized, there are no precise time measurements for how long it takes to make it edible.

Instead, each family and community has its own recipe that has been passed down through generations. Anyone who isn't an expert could easily make a mistake in the sauce's preparation. Rather than taking the chance, trained chefs in South America buy it from Amazonian communities, who've been making it for over 4,000 years.

Needless to say, this is a recipe you should not try to make at home. The intensive process of making tucupí safe to eat To make tucupí, juice from the cassava root is squeezed when the tuber is pulped. The juice is then fermented, boiled, and seasoned.

In its basic form, the sauce is bright yellow, and often used to add flavor to broths and other sauces. Tacacá is one of the most common dishes you'll find it in in the state of Pará (a dish so beloved it inspired a musical hit, " "). During the regional, religious holiday Círio de Nazaré, you'll also find pato no tucupí, or "duck in tucupí" as a fixture among the celebratory spread.

Black tucupí is even more popular than the yellow version; this style takes the original sauce and places it over heat while it continues to ferment for several days. After it's taken off the fire, the sauce has turned a dark, almost black color, and has the consistency of paste. Because this style's preparation is more complex, so are its flavors, especially since it's common to add spices, peppers, and even ants.

Black tucupí can be used in practically any dish, be it stews, smoked meats, or tapioca. In the U.S.

, you can find it bottled in Brazilian food shops, if you're lucky enough to have one nearby. Otherwise, Culinary Culture Connections , so you don't have to wait until you've saved up enough for a plane ticket to try this wonderfully complex sauce. Recommended.