Max Justo Guedes and Jorge Couto

o make bitter cassava edible, the Tupis used a complex procedure to remove the prussic acid from the tubers. Cassava pulp was squeezed in a tipiti (a press used to extract the poisonous liquid), kneaded and then toasted in large round clay containers. Sweet cassava was generally peeled and roasted on coals. The Guaranis preferred maize, which they ate both boiled and roasted, as well as drying the full-grown kernels whole.

Amerindians usually stewed fresh fish. However, they also ate it moqueado, or grilled on green sticks (moquém). Meat was usually roasted, except for tapyr, which was boiled. Salt and hot peppers were mixed together to make juquiraí, a pinch of which was always used to season food.
The Tupi-Guarani made a beverage called cauim from sweet cassava, maize, sweet potatoes, palm sap and fruit juices (pineapple and cashew). This task was performed by young women, who cooked the ingredients and chewed them, using their saliva to start the process of fermentation. Cauim was dark and thick as sludge, and drunk lukewarm.

Tipiti The diet of the Tupi-Guarani also included wild fruits such as passion fruit, jabuticaba, guava, cajá and mangaba, as well as honey, bird eggs, grubs, locusts, bees and ants.