CAST organized a training on cooking cassava flour products in Bamba (on 13th and 14th November 2014) and Vitengeni (on 17th and 18th November 2014) Divisions of Ganze Sub-county. This training targeted community members picked by the Assistant chiefs in the hope of encouraging more people to use cassava flour to cook meals at their homes; this has really not been the case in the past and one of the reasons for not consuming these products was the lack of knowledge on preparing the meals…well, CAST decided to tackle the problem by teaching the community members how to prepare the meals through cooking demonstrations.
The training was a two-day event with the first day involving discussions on the nutritional value of cassava and ways of supplementing cassava meals with proteins to gain a balanced diet with input from the participants on the locally available foods they could use. When the trainers mentioned making meals and cakes from cassava flour, you could see the disbelief on most of the participants’ faces as they thought cassava was only fit for boiling and eating with tea! Boy, did we look forward to changing those doubts into gasps of delight once they tasted the meals planned for the next day. Day two was D-day and it was a cooking fest all around. Meals like ugali, chapatti and porridge were made, as well as cake and biscuits to add a twist to the versatility of cassava flour. The trainers would provide recipes and guide the participants as they made the meals by themselves.
As the cooking progressed you could hear comments by the participants on their surprise and pleasure at how well the products were…”Eh, Erimina mwenzangu, unaamini hii keki ni ya mhogo, nakwambia ni tamu hata kuliko ya kawaida-(Erimina my friend, can you believe this cake is made using cassava, it tastes even better Continue reading
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