Griddled · Cassava Flatbread

Bammy

Photo: Jongleur100 / Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

It's a direct descendant of casabe, the cassava bread the Taíno were making in Jamaica for centuries before Columbus arrived.

Grated cassava is pressed to remove its liquid, sifted into flour, and pressed into flat rounds that are griddled until firm, then often soaked in coconut milk and fried again. A fixture beside plates of fried fish at north-coast beach shacks and roadside stands.

Why it's made this way: The grate-press-toast method comes straight from the Indigenous Taíno, who used it to turn cassava, otherwise mildly toxic when raw, into a safe, storable daily bread.