Cassareep

Cassareepis a thick black liquid made fromcassavaroot, often with additional spices, which is used as a base for many sauces and especially inGuyanese pepperpot. Besides use as a flavoring and browning agent, it is commonly regarded as a foodpreservativealthough laboratory testing is inconclusive.
Cassareep is made from the juice of the bittercassavaroot, which is poisonous, as it containsacetone cyanohydrin, a compound which decomposes to the highly toxichydrogen cyanideon contact with water.Hydrogen cyanide, traditionally called "prussic acid", is volatile and quickly dissipates when heated.Nevertheless, improperly cooked cassava has been blamed for a number of deaths.Indigenous peoples in Guyanareportedly made an antidote by steepingchili peppersinrum.
To make cassareep, the juice is boiled until it is reduced by half in volume,to the consistency ofmolassesand flavored withspices—includingcloves,cinnamon,salt,sugar, andcayenne pepper.Traditionally, cassareep was boiled in a soft pot, the actual "pepper pot", which would absorb the flavors and also impart them (even if dry) to foods such as rice and chicken cooked in it.
Most cassareep isexportedfromGuyana.The natives of Guyana traditionally brought the product to town in bottles,and it is available on theUS marketin bottled form.Though the cassava root traveled from Brazil to Africa, where the majority of cassava is grown, there is no production of cassareep in Africa.
Cassareep is used for two distinct goals, that originate from two important aspects of the ingredient: its particular flavor, and its preservative quality.
Cassareep is essential in the preparation ofpepperpot, and gives the dish its "distinctive bittersweet flavor."Cassareep can also be used as an added flavoring to dishes, "imparting upon them the richness and flavour of strong beef-soup."
A peculiar quality of cassareep, which works as anantiseptic, is that it allows food to be kept "on the back of the stove"for indefinite lengths of time,as long as additional cassareep is added every time meat is added. According to legend, Betty Mascoll ofGrenadahad a pepperpot that was maintained like this for more than a century.Dutch planters inSurinamereportedly had pepperpots in daily use that they kept cooking for many years,as did "businessmen's clubs" in the Caribbean.
The antiseptic qualities of cassareep are well known—so well known, in fact, that the Reverend J.G. Wood, who published hisWanderings in South Americain 1879, was criticized fornotmentioning the "antiseptic properties of cassava juice (cassareep), which enables the Indian on a canoe voyage to take with him a supply of meat for several days."
In the mid- to late nineteenth century, as reports of adventures by English explorers became widely read in England, statements about cassareep and its antiseptic qualities became easily available; an early example was a publication inThe Pharmaceutical Journalfrom 1847,and similar references can be found throughout the late nineteenth century, such as in the work of Irish naturalist and explorerThomas Heazle Parkeand in pharmaceuticaland trade journals.Professor Attfield, professor of practical chemistry for theRoyal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, however, in the 1870 edition of theYear-book of Pharmacy, claimed that his laboratory studies proved no effectiveness whatsoever.Still, pharmaceutical journals and handbooks began to report of the possible use of cassareep, and suggested it might be helpful in the treatment of, for instance, eye afflictions such ascorneal ulcersandconjunctivitis.