As a little kid I believed I was eating eyeballs; at least that is where my imagination took me when I would eat Tapioca pudding.   I haven’t had this sweet treat in so long that when my dad asked for it as his Father’s Day dessert, I couldn’t remember what it tasted like.  We all joked about the origins of this unique gelatinous wonder, but none of us really knew the truth.

Tapioca is actually a starch that comes from the cassava plant, which is native to the western hemisphere. It is now widely cultivated in Africa and Asia, and is found in several forms including a flour, flakes and pellets or pearls. Pearl tapioca is what is used in puddings and what makes the little round chewies in the pudding -- what I had imagined to be eyeballs. Pearl tapioca can be found in most major grocery stores and the other forms can be found in health food stores and Asian markets.

As I was reading up on the pearls, I found out that I actually have eaten straight tapioca. While shopping in an upscale mall, I stopped at a tea store and ordered a bubble tea. I was handed a cool drink that had a pile or brown pearls on the bottom of the cup. The straw that I was supposed to suck out of was abnormally gigantic. After my first sip I figured out why -- the pearls were huge, and hence the big straw for me to get the pearls from the cup to my mouth. At first it was shocking to have something chewy in my tea, but as I got used to it, I rather enjoyed the different textures. It was kind of like a tasteless brown gummy bear; I know, it sounds delicious.

According to ochef.com, Tapioca is found in different forms around the world.  For instance in Vietnam, tapioca is found in clear and colorful sticks called bot khoai and are available dried. The tapioca sticks are made into weird zigzag shapes and have a chewy texture with virtually no taste at all. They are most often used in sweet drinks like coconut milk and fruits, or bubble tea. In Indonesia, a tapioca starch producer uses this processed cassava root to make raw materials for crackers, toothpaste, paper and even textiles.

The tapioca served for my dad’s special dessert was delicious—vanilla bean and cinnamon were added as an extra zip to the eyeball pudding. While doing my research, I came across an original recipe from 1894 that was ‘tapioca pudding with apples,’ tempting my taste buds with a twist on the vanilla version of this dessert.  Baked apples covered with tapioca pudding served with a butter and sugar sauce -- it doesn’t get any better than that!

Tapioca pudding

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