Is tapioca starch something you can find at a regular grocery store?
If not, what kind of local store can you get it at?


P.S. It seems silly to order online and pay $5 shipping for a dollar
item.

Steve Wertz wrote:
> On 8 Jun 2004 08:32:46 -0700, (MC) wrote:
>
>
>>Is tapioca starch something you can find at a regular grocery store?
>>If not, what kind of local store can you get it at?
>
>
> Asian grocers, or sometimes in the ethnic isles of regular grocery
> stores. They're not usually shelved with the regular baking
> flours.
>
> -sw

I was recently in an Asian market looking for, among other things, water
chestnut flour. The starches/flours aisle is amazing. I never knew
there was such a thing as green bean flour.

--Charlene

--
A tranquil woman can go on sewing longer than an angry man can go on
fuming. -- George Bernard Shaw

--

email perronnelle at earthlink . net

MC wrote:

> Is tapioca starch something you can find at a regular grocery store?
> If not, what kind of local store can you get it at?
>
>
> P.S. It seems silly to order online and pay $5 shipping for a dollar
> item.

Is there an Asian market anywhere near you?

---jkb

--
"No sprinkles! For every sprinkle I find, I shall kill you!"
-- Stewie Griffin

In article >,
says...
> Is tapioca starch something you can find at a regular grocery store?
> If not, what kind of local store can you get it at?
>
>
> P.S. It seems silly to order online and pay $5 shipping for a dollar
> item.
>
You can normally find it at any store that has a reasonable bulk bin food
department. If you've got a Whole Foods nearby, try there.
--
Donna
A pessimist believes all women are bad. An optimist hopes they are.

I tried Whole Foods and no luck. I tried a couple of other grocery
stores and they didn't have it either. The closest I came was tapioca
that was already cooked for pudding.

Donna Rose > wrote in message nk.net>...
> In article >,
> says...
> > Is tapioca starch something you can find at a regular grocery store?
> > If not, what kind of local store can you get it at?
> >
> >
> > P.S. It seems silly to order online and pay $5 shipping for a dollar
> > item.
> >
> You can normally find it at any store that has a reasonable bulk bin food
> department. If you've got a Whole Foods nearby, try there.

"MC" > wrote in message
om...
> I tried Whole Foods and no luck. I tried a couple of other grocery
> stores and they didn't have it either. The closest I came was tapioca
> that was already cooked for pudding.


Tapioca starch is something I keep on hand and use frequently. I have only
been able to find it in Asian grocery stores - Chinese, Thai or Filipino. It
is packaged in plastic bags and is very inexpensive.

(MC) wrote in message . com>...
> Is tapioca starch something you can find at a regular grocery store?
> If not, what kind of local store can you get it at?
>
>
> P.S. It seems silly to order online and pay $5 shipping for a dollar
> item.

If you have a spice grinder on hand, buy some Minute Tapioca and grind
it up to a powder--this might work in your recipe. I do this when I'm
making a pie filling which calls for tapioca. It gives a nice even
thickening instead of those gelatinous little blobs you encounter
otherwise.

-Scott

On 9 Jun 2004 17:05:37 -0700, (MC) wrote:

>I tried Whole Foods and no luck. I tried a couple of other grocery
>stores and they didn't have it either. The closest I came was tapioca
>that was already cooked for pudding.
>
>Donna Rose > wrote in message nk.net>...
>> In article >,
>> says...
>> > Is tapioca starch something you can find at a regular grocery store?
>> > If not, what kind of local store can you get it at?
>> >
>> >
>> > P.S. It seems silly to order online and pay $5 shipping for a dollar
>> > item.
>> >
>> You can normally find it at any store that has a reasonable bulk bin food
>> department. If you've got a Whole Foods nearby, try there.

Also look for as "tapioca flour".

TB

Any asian market sells it - 12 oz for about $.49

>(Snowfeet1) writes:
>
>Any asian market sells it - 12 oz for about $.49

It would be exceedingly rare to find cassava flour in North American markets...
one would readily find it in pearl form (tapioca) but not flour.


It's a geographical thingie...
Asian markets more often sell "sago" (a starch extracted from the sago palm),
both as pearls and as flour... culinarilly indistigushable from tapioca (which
is extracted from cassava).

Encyclopædia Britannica Article

sago

food starch prepared from carbohydrate material stored in the trunks of several
palms, the main sources being Metroxylon rumphii and M. sagu, sago palms native
to the Indonesian archipelago.

Sago palms grow in low marshy areas, usually reaching a height of nearly 9 m
(30 feet) and developing thick trunks. The plant matures in 15 years, producing
an inflorescence, or flower spike, and the pith, or central portion, of the
stem becomes gorged with starchy material. When fruit is allowed to form and
ripen, it absorbs the starch, leaving the stem hollow, and the tree dies after
the fruit ripens. Cultivated plants are cut down when the flower spike appears,
and their stems are divided into sections and split open so that the starchy
pith may be extracted. The extracted material is grated to make a powder, which
is kneaded with water over a strainer, through which the starch passes into a
trough below, leaving any woody fibre behind. After several washings the
resulting sago meal is ready for local use. When prepared for export, sago meal
is mixed with water to form a paste and rubbed through sieves of various sizes,
producing grains sold as pearl or bullet sago, depending upon their size.

Sago is almost pure starch, being composed of 88 percent carbohydrate, 0.5
percent protein, and minute amounts of fat, and contains only a trace of B
vitamins. It is a basic food of the southwest Pacific area, where it is used in
meal form to prepare soups, cakes, and puddings. Elsewhere, its use in cookery
is mainly as a pudding and sauce thickener. In industry it is used as a textile
stiffener.

In Indonesia, sago forests are especially extensive on the Island of Ceram.
Borneo, producing much of the sago imported into Europe, has added new
plantings as a result of increased demand. Other Indonesian palms that are
sources of sago include the gomuti palm (Arenga pinnata), the kittul palm
(Caryota urens), and the cabbage palm (Corypha umbraculifera). Two South
American species yielding sago are Mauritia flexuosa and Guilielma gasipaes.
---

cassava

also called Manioc, Mandioc, or Yuca (Manihot esculenta), tuberous edible
plant of the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae) from the American tropics. It is
cultivated throughout the tropical world for its tuberous roots, from which
cassava flour, breads, tapioca, a laundry starch, and even an alcoholic
beverage are derived. Cassava probably was first cultivated by the Maya in
Yucatán.

A cyanide-producing sugar derivative occurs in varying amounts in most
varieties. Primitive peoples developed a complex refining system to remove the
poison by grating, pressing, and heating the tubers. The poison (hydrocyanic
acid) has been used for darts and arrows.

An extremely variable species, cassava probably is a hybrid. It is a perennial
with conspicuous, almost palmate (fan-shaped) leaves resembling those of the
castor bean but more deeply parted into five to nine lobes. The fleshy roots
are reminiscent of dahlia tubers. Different varieties range from low herbs
through many-branched, 1-metre- (3-foot-) tall shrubs to slender, unbranched
5-m trees. Some are adapted to dry areas of alkaline soil and others to acid
mudbanks along rivers.

All the approximately 160 species of the genus Manihot are sun-loving natives
of tropical America. Ceará rubber is produced from M. glaziovii, from
northeastern Brazil. Food items such as the gelatinous fufu of West Africa and
the bami mush of Jamaica come from cassava. Additional cassava products include
an alcoholic beverage made by Indians in South America, the powdery casabe
cakes of Yucatán, and tapioca, the only cassava product on northern markets.

Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service.
<http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=66416>
[Accessed June 16, 2004].
---

---= BOYCOTT FRANCE (belgium) GERMANY--SPAIN =---
---= Move UNITED NATIONS To Paris =---
*********
"Life would be devoid of all meaning were it without tribulation."
Sheldon
````````````

Steve Wertz wrote:
>
> On 16 Jun 2004 14:35:23 GMT, (PENMART01) wrote:
>
> >It would be exceedingly rare to find cassava flour in North American markets...
> >one would readily find it in pearl form (tapioca) but not flour.
>
> More of Sheldon's culinary bullshit. It's in every asian market
> here in the U.S, just like most of us have claimed.
>
> Have you ever even *been* to an Asian market? Doesn't sound like
> it.
>
> -sw

Tapioca/cassava flour is readily available in Asian markets around here
(ABQ), as is the (sweet) cassava root. It was just as readily available
in Asian markets in San Diego when I lived there and in Cleveland when I
lived there and in the NYC area when I lived there. New Hampshire was
problematic (semi-rural area and no Asian markets) and when we lived in
Florida, I was too young to be cooking so never looked in an Asian
market.

I bought some in an Asian market. However, the recipe (Pao do Queijo -
Brazilian cheese bread) did not come out right. Now I've read that
there is actually a sweet version and a sour version. My bag does not
specify a difference. I guess in Brazil it is called polvilho doce.


Arri London > wrote in message >...
> Steve Wertz wrote:
> >
> > On 16 Jun 2004 14:35:23 GMT, (PENMART01) wrote:
> >
> > >It would be exceedingly rare to find cassava flour in North American markets...
> > >one would readily find it in pearl form (tapioca) but not flour.
> >
> > More of Sheldon's culinary bullshit. It's in every asian market
> > here in the U.S, just like most of us have claimed.
> >
> > Have you ever even *been* to an Asian market? Doesn't sound like
> > it.
> >
> > -sw
>
> Tapioca/cassava flour is readily available in Asian markets around here
> (ABQ), as is the (sweet) cassava root. It was just as readily available
> in Asian markets in San Diego when I lived there and in Cleveland when I
> lived there and in the NYC area when I lived there. New Hampshire was
> problematic (semi-rural area and no Asian markets) and when we lived in
> Florida, I was too young to be cooking so never looked in an Asian
> market.

(MC) wrote in news:289a46d0.0407110713.152a5f38
@posting.google.com:

> I bought some in an Asian market. However, the recipe (Pao do Queijo -
> Brazilian cheese bread) did not come out right. Now I've read that
> there is actually a sweet version and a sour version. My bag does not
> specify a difference. I guess in Brazil it is called polvilho doce.
>

Plain tapioca starch would be neither sweet nor sour, and is entirely
bland. You must have bought some kind of combination product intended for
a more specific use.

--
Wayne in Phoenix

If there's a nit to pick, some nitwit will pick it.

(MC) wrote in news:289a46d0.0407110713.152a5f38
@posting.google.com:

> I bought some in an Asian market. However, the recipe (Pao do Queijo -
> Brazilian cheese bread) did not come out right. Now I've read that
> there is actually a sweet version and a sour version. My bag does not
> specify a difference. I guess in Brazil it is called polvilho doce.
>

Plain tapioca starch would be neither sweet nor sour, and is entirely
bland. You must have bought some kind of combination product intended for
a more specific use.

--
Wayne in Phoenix

If there's a nit to pick, some nitwit will pick it.