As Bermudian As Cassava Pie …

A local Christian writer is dreaming of a Bermuda Christmas, pointing out you get everything here over the Yuletide season except snow — as well as some traditions you don’t find anywhere else in the world like cassava pie.

Catherine West, who participates in an International Christian Fiction Writers on-line forum, shared the history and customs of Bermuda’s unique Christmas celebrations with the world today (Dec. 21),  highlighting the fact cassava pie is the piece de resistance of the Yule dinner.

“This is a Bermudian dish, and it’s actually not really a pie at all,” she said. “It consists of cassava, a root that is actually poisonous, but it’s treated and prepared into a flour-type substance, one pound of butter, twelve eggs, two cups of sugar, some lemon extract, salt to taste and a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg if you like — this makes your top and bottom layer — the middle is filled with finely chopped cooked chicken or pork.

“I like to use chicken. It’s a funny sort of dish, you will either love it or hate it. I make it every year and try not to think about the calories I’m consuming as I devour it!”

Unknown as a Christmas dish anywhere else in the world, Bermudian historian William Zuill believes cassava arrived here at the same time as the first black and Native American inhabitants shortly after the island was permanently settled in 1612.

“Governor Daniel Tucker sent the ship ‘Edwin’ to the West Indies in 1616 to bring back tropical plants to try out in Bermuda,” he said in an article on the almost 400-year-old tradition written for the Smithsonian Institution’s Centre for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. “The ship also brought the first persons of African and Native American descent to come to the island. Thus the African, European, and Native American strands of population that make up Bermuda today were present from very early times.

“It seems likely that cassava (or manioc) was among the tropical plants the ‘Edwin’ brought, and our traditional Christmas cassava pie – made with cassava paste in both crust and filling – probably stems from this very early period. One writer declared, ‘it took some ingenious housewife’ to turn cassava into an edible pie, and today, after nearly four centuries, it remains our principal and unique Christmas dish’ …”

Such is the worldwide interest in the island’s national dish, the Bermuda National Library hosts an on-line background document on cassava pie and other Bermuda Christmas traditions.

Acclaimed on-line food writer Jennifer A. Wickes — whose recipes have won awards from magazines including “Bon Appetit” –  has published her method for preparing the Bermuda cassava pie recipe at her website, which features a section on Bermudian cuisine, saying “Christmas would not be the same without this …”

Cassava pie has intrigued travel writers who have reported on Bermuda  for generations, with the “New York Times” once describing it as “a noble dish satisfying to. the most finicky epicure” (although the American paper of record did go on to note it could sit heavily on an inexperienced stomach: ”Cassava pie is a necessary adjunct to a real Bermuda Christmas dinner. A glass of dry sherry, however, is a necessary adjunct to a cassava pie …”)

Others, though, have been less impressed by this traditional Bermuda dish.

“Bermuda imports more than 25 tons of cassava from the West Indies durinbg the holidays, her own cassava trees making way for resort hotels and residences on this densely populated island,” reported a Florida newspaper in the 1970s. “Making a cassava pie is a serious project, entailing soaking the root overnight, then grating it, then leaving it overnight again, then straining it through cheesecloth so all of the cassava’s poison is drained.

“The cassava is then mixed with various spices to form a crist that is filled with chicken, pork and thyme and baked to make the final product.It tastes, well, very different.”

Photo credit: The Bermuda Cassava Pie Club!

#BermudaHistory #BermudianCulture #Christmas #Cuisine

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