The inaugural and much anticipated Cassava Festival will be held in Kwebanna Village, Moruca sub-region in Region One on December 14.
Fifty women from the Farmers Group and the Hand-in-Hand Women’s Group in Kwebanna benefited from one week training in preparation to host the Cassava Festival.
The one-day festival is seeking to highlight the potential of Kwebanna and according to organizers, patrons will enjoy several delicious dishes prepared from by-products of the cassava.
The 50 women had the chance to experiment with the cassava flour before the festival and have created new and delicious recipes.
The Ministry of Indigenous People’s Affairs in a statement said the recipes created will be unveiled at the commissioning of the Cassava Flour Processing Facility.
The facility was completed earlier in June this year to the tune of $26M and was subsequently certified by the Government Analyst Food and Drug Department (GA-FDD).
The training was done by the Hinterland Employment Youth Service (HEYS) Catering Facilitator, Margaret Cornette, to ensure the standardized amount of ingredients is used in preparing foods to meet local and international standards.
Chairperson of the Women’s Group, Barbara Peters said, “We had things made out of the cassava flour and the cassava meal and the cassava starch. We made starch custard, starch pie, starch muffin, seasoned plantain coated with starch, cassava fruit cake, cassava ginger/cheese sticks, cassava puff, seasoned cassava, cassava surprise, quenchers; so the training was very successful and I’m happy that the turnout was good.”
One of the participants, Leandra France said the training was exciting.
“…it was exciting, very interesting and I learnt a lot of things with the cassava flour. It will help us to prepare not only for the local people but for people who will be visiting our community in the future.”
Another participant, Lorna Wilson said, “I can tell you we had a very wonderful time with our teacher using the cassava flour and we had a sale at the end and most of the group had sold out. So now we waiting on the Cassava Festival and we had to put our hand in a bag and pull out a piece of paper and we will be making that for the festival.”
Chairman for the Cassava Flour Processing Facility, Fabian France noted that the training will not only benefit the women in Kwebanna but also nearby villages such as Manawarin, Santa Cruz and Warapoka.
Meanwhile, Minister within the Ministry of Indigenous People’s Affairs, Valerie Garrido-Lowe said, “The farmers are enthusiastic about the cassava flour and wheat flour mixture and we want to ensure the correct mixture that would make excellent bread, cakes and pastries, will be packaged and marketed.”
It was noted that some thirty farmers are currently planting cassava to supply to the facility.
