FoodBanter.com - Where to buy Tapioca Starch

>(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.
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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].
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