June 28th is National Tapioca Day.
Celebrate with these tips and a recipe from Gourmand World Award Winning Chef Maria Liberati. Please feel free to use this article as is. For additional comments, an interview, or photos please reach out to me at [email protected]
Extremely excited to shine a spotlight on National Tapioca Day because of the lack of popularity it receives from everyone. Made from the cassava plant, tapioca is versatile, though tapioca pudding is the most popular American dish made with this ingredient, including savory dinner dishes. Once a staple in American households, tapioca was dehydrated to survive long voyages without spoilage and even still have a long shelf life. For many people, they have a love/hate relationship with tapioca because during their childhood they dove a spoon into it expecting a smooth and silky vanilla pudding, but instead got a mouthful of tiny tapioca balls of squishiness. This traumatized many young children and in result made adults unsure of this delicious dessert. Now that this holiday is right around the corner, I encourage you to give tapioca another chance.
How to Celebrate
Making your own batch from scratch may be the key to giving Tapioca Pudding another try. Whether it’s a family recipe, Pinterest recipe, or you simply just want to experiment with the process with be enjoyable. During the process, you’ll realize those tiny tapioca pearls will form such a creamy mouth-watering dessert. If you need assistance try out this gluten-free vanilla pudding recipe out adding ½ cup of tapioca to the milk mixture http://www.marialiberati.com/2011/01/12/a-gluten-free-vanilla-cream-pudding/.
If you don’t want tapioca pudding there are other forms. Bubble tea is a popular Thai drink that includes tapioca.
What’s not to love?
While we typically don’t associate desserts with health foods, tapioca is packed with vitamins and minerals that do great things for your body. Want increased circulation? Dig into some tapioca. Need an extra dose of Vitamin K for strong bone growth? Have a heaping bowl of tapioca pudding!
If you like experimenting in the kitchen, there is a variety of recipes to try when it comes to using tapioca. There’s always the simply delectable tapioca your grandparents enjoyed, but there are more recent variations that have been catching on. How about making tapioca pudding with almond or coconut milk and bits of fruit? Or, if you think you’re a true culinary expert, try baking it as a tapioca creme brulee. Celebrate with family and friends.
Celebrity Chef/Award Winning Author-blogger Maria Liberati is the author of the Gourmand World Award Winning book series The Basic Art of Italian Cooking. She is executive editor of The Basic Art Art of Italian Cooking by Maria Liberati and blog at http://www.marialiberati.com/blog2- winner of culinary travel blog of the year 2013 by the NY Travel Writers’ Society, and with 300,000 worldwide subscribers
For more award-winning recipes, get your copy of The Basic Art of Italian Cooking: Holidays and Special Occasions-2nd edition, winner of the Gourmand World Awards
