Tapioca That Dessert Standard Updated

Too bad tapioca isn't a dessert favorite anymore because it is good. It's an old fashioned dessert, better served after a homemade meat loaf or roast chicken with potatoes. Yet it can fit right at home in the 21st Century. It's still a treat , even as a snack.

Tapioca gets its' start from the cassava root. this is a yam like tuber that can be made into a variety of products form bread to pudding to even biodegradable bags(strange but true) Tapioca used as a food goes back hundred of years to when the indigenous Brazilians used to grow and then eat the root in a variety of ways. It is also popular in Southeast Asia where it;s put in bubble teas. It's also popular in Southern India where the people of Kerala eat it boiled with spices or the root is cut into thin slices. Tapioca first hit the American dessert table in 1894 thanks t o a Boston housewife, Susan Stavers. One of her roomers was an ailing sailor who brought back the cassava root. he advised her to grind it in her coffee grinder where it was turned into fakes. She made it into a sweet treat with cream for him. The news of it spread throughout her neighborhood and she had a business on her hands. She was bought out by John Whitman ,a newspaper publisher and renamed the fledgling industry The Minute Tapioca Company. General Foods bought him out in 1928 where it was then produced for all of America.

The pudding is still good today as it was then, You can update it a bit with adding fruit and flavorings. there are recipes that call for apples and peaches to give it color and texture. Lemon juice can also be added for a lighter more refreshing taste. if you want a more tropical taste think about a dash of lime juice or coconut milk. Tapioca can also be made with rice added so it';s a hybrid of itself and rice pudding.

Tapioca may be an old fashioned dessert but it can certainly fit in with today's dinner. It's a different kind of pudding , with hints of exotic places. Introduce it on your dessert table. This sweet treat will have a whole new generation of fans.