Lesson 6 of A Taste Of African Heritage Plant Based class with The Boston Project Ministries youth: Tubers and Mashes!

We learned about the different types of tubers—Cassava (also known as manioc, mandioca or yuca and can be poisonous if eaten raw—so cook them!)which is used to make tapioca flour and pudding as well, Taro (a potato-like starch that is either white or purple inside) and some Asians use it to make a dessert like rice pudding, sweet potatoes, and yams that are usually longer and harder than sweet potatoes. We also discussed ways to cook plantains (boiling or baking) as well as adding nuts and nut butters to yam/sweet potato stews. We did not have time to make the African peanut stew but I think I will be making it at home for sure.

Guess how many varieties of sweet potatoes there are? 600! And guess how many uses George Washington Carver found for sweet potatoes and peanuts—100 and over 300 respectively.

We made sweet potato fries adapting the regular baked potato fries recipe from Brand New Vegan then made my recipe of homemade ketchup from page 34–35 of my book. We used Garnet Yams and white fleshed Japanese Sweet Potatoes which the students ended up preferring. The students went back with a large mason jar full of ketchup and the ingredients to make more when they re-make the recipe independently on Thursday.

Since it was over 90 degrees, I surprised the students with banana-strawberry ice cream which they loved! They were surprised that the only two ingredients were frozen bananas and strawberries mixed in my Vitamix blender. Everyone had seconds.

Next week’s lesson is fruits and vegetables and will be our final class for the summer. I promised them another tasty surprise from my Plant Based dessert repertoire. We’ve had a lot of fun and I’m going to miss them!