A tropical plant with a starchy root that's processed into tapioca and cassava flour, a staple food in Central and South America, Africa, and Asia.
From Taino 'cassaba' or 'yucca,' languages of the Caribbean. The word entered European languages through Spanish and Portuguese colonizers and became globalized as the plant was spread to Africa and Asia.
Cassava is the hidden calorie foundation of billions of people's diets—tapioca comes from it, cassava flour feeds millions, and it grows in poor soil where almost nothing else will, making it one of the most important famine-prevention crops colonizers accidentally exported to Africa and Asia.
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