Tucupi

Written by Jonathas on 28 March 2017.

Tucupi is a yellow sauce-like sub-product of the “mandioca brava” (Manihoc esculenta, “wild” manioc, or “angry” manioc). It is a particular ingredient produced in the North of Brazil, especially in the State of Pará. This is the base ingredient of some traditional dishes with strong links with the indigenous culinary culture, such as “Tacacá”, "Caldeirada Paraense" or “Pato no Tucupi”.

It is usually sold in reused soda bottles at open markets, being the result of peeling, grinding and cooking the mandioca brava for 4 to 6 days to eliminate the poisonous hydrocyanic acid which this type of manioc contains when raw.

Poisonous manioc

The wild manioc has hydrocyanic acid (hydrogen cyanide, or Prussian acid) in its roots, branches and leaves. Whenever the plant is cut or peeled, it generates the acid in gas form. This serves as a defense mechanism against predators. For humans, this acid is a deadly poison that quickly reacts with red blood cells (hemoglobin), preventing blood oxygenation, causing death by intoxication.

Hydrogen cyanide was used as a chemical weapon in the First World War by the French from 1916 and by the United States and Italy in 1918. In the Second World War, the Nazis used this acid in their extermination camps.