Tapé

tapé is the Indonesian word for the products of a fermentation using either cassava or sticky rice, the result in both cases being a sweet and faintly alcoholic food which is served as a snack. Cassava tapé (tapé singkong, tapé ketela) is made by peeling, splitting, and boiling mature cassava tubers, inoculating them with ragi, and incubating them semi-anaerobically for 24 to 48 hours. Active agents in the fermentation include yeasts and moulds. The result is a soft-textured, juicy length of cassava with a tangy flavour. It can be eaten straight, or put in drinks made of coconut milk and palm sugar such as the mouth-watering cendol, or may, as in E. Java, be baked as tapé panggang, where the compressed tapé emerges in a cake of a rather chewy, stringy consistency with a flavour reminiscent of apple strudel.