Editing Tapioca (section)

===West Indies===
[[File:Taíno women preparing cassava bread.png|right|200px|thumb|[[Taíno]] women preparing [[cassava bread]] in 1565: grating yuca roots into a paste, shaping the bread, and cooking it on a fire-heated burén]]
Tapioca is a staple food from which dishes such as pepper pot as well as alcohol are made. It may be used to clean the teeth, as a foodstuff cooked with meats or fish, and in desserts such as cassava pone.{{Citation needed|date=November 2010}}

Specifically in rural Cuba early in Spanish rule, tapioca's popularity grew because it was easy to cultivate the crop and to transport it to nearby Spanish settlements, eventually influencing the way land and people were divided in that early imperial era.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=LeRiverend|first=Julio|date=January 1984|title=Problemas de la Formación Agraria Cubana|journal=Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional José Martí|volume=26|issue=1|pages=153–185|via=EBSCO Host}}</ref>