"Cassava must be cooked thoroughly. You absolutely cannot eat it if it's not fully cooked, or you'll get poisoned. To be safe, it's best to cook it for as long as possible. That includes the white peel I removed earlier—that's also poisonous. It tastes bitter, so you have to peel it off. No cutting corners."
"Also, cassava itself doesn't have much of a special flavor. It's best to cook it with sugar. That way, you get a sweet cassava soup, which is great both hot and cold."
Since he needed sugar, his only option was mangoes.
So, when he dropped things off for Erica earlier, he had taken a detour to pick over a dozen large mangoes. He planned to mash them into a puree and add it as a sugar substitute.
After he finished all the steps for the cassava, he couldn't be bothered to move. He simply grabbed a few warm pieces of smoked crocodile meat from the smoker rack, tore them into strips, and had a little snack.
