Yuca Be Kidding Me

I’ve come to terms with something important. I am a soup addict. When I’m not eating soup and let’s be clear, I eat soup daily, I’m thinking about soup. What’s the next batch? What’s going to make it uniquely mine? What risk am I taking this time that could either win me glory or end in quiet shame?

Every once in a while, and it’s rare, I hit soup block. Two full weeks. Nothing. No inspiration. No spark. Soup Surgeon Jenn stepped up last week and absolutely crushed it, which meant the pressure was officially back on me to figure something out.

Rewind to an APR sales meeting. We were talking about Soup Club member Adam’s bag of crackers that somehow scored a zero on the Yuka app. Zero. That’s not food Adam, that’s evidence. Somewhere in that conversation, Soup Club wannabe Andy Robinson, also known as aRob, thought we were talking about yuca root instead of Yuka. And just like that, a seed was planted…Yuca soup. This is what we talk about in sales meetings, by the way.

So now I’m asking the obvious questions. What the hell is yuca? Where do you even buy it? Is it dangerous? Will it kill me? The usual soup questions.

Fast forward to Meijer last Saturday. Huge pile of yuca just sitting there. Like it’s always been there. Who buys this stuff? Have I been walking past yuca for 56 years without noticing? My internet research says it’s Brazilian. The label says Costa Rica. Are those close? I mean… geographically? Culturally? Somewhere south of Michigan? Good enough.

This was the weekend to execute. No more soup block. The plan was ambitious. Drive three hours to Ludington, do condo stuff Friday and Saturday morning, drive south to Muskegon, pick up Jenn, hit Meijer for yuca and veggie friends, cook, eat, drive back to Ludington, more condo stuff Sunday, then head home. Sounds simple. It did not go exactly as planned.

First problem. Snow. My normal two hour and forty-five-minute drive turned into four hours and thirty-five minutes. Gross.

Second problem. More snow. My normal fifty-five-minute drive to Muskegon turned into an hour and twenty-five minutes. Double gross.

Third problem. Yuca. Or the lack of yuca. Jenn’s Meijer had three sad little yuca…things. I don’t even know what to call them. Do you say “three yucas” like potatoes? Or is it “three pieces of yuca”? Is yuca a vibe? Now I’m confused!

I also had no idea if the yuca was fresh. Was it six months old? Would a Brazilian woman look at this yuca and say, “This is the worst yuca I have ever seen,” or “Wow, beautiful yuca”? No clue. We panic bought potatoes just in case, thank God we didn’t need them, and then drove to another Meijer where there was more yuca. Still no idea if it was good yuca, but confidence was medium.

Then more snow. The drive back to Ludington was brutal. By this point, snow had added about three extra hours of windshield time, and I still have to get home eventually.

This soup should have been easy. Short ingredient list. Minimal chopping. Lies. You can’t peel yuca with a potato peeler. You have to cut it and physically rip the peel off like you’re skinning a deer. Then there’s the inner “cork” you’re supposed to remove. What is that? Why is it there? Who decided that was necessary? I peeled. Jenn handled the cork removal like a professional sharp object wizard. Side note, Jenn, sharpen those knives.

Also important. A bowl of peeled and diced yuca smells exactly like an old moldy garage. Exactly. Expectations plummeted fast!

We let it cook a long time because neither of us wanted to die of old moldy garage yuca poisoning. While it cooked, we had productive things to do, like reorganizing salmon fishing lures, but too the easy way out and ended up watching Breaking Bad to see what Heisenberg was up to. Balance.

Then it was soup time...and holy hell! This soup was fantastic! Not watery. Not too thick. Great flavor. And the yuca? Shockingly amazing. Starchy like a potato, chewy like gum, and somehow perfect. Add the spicy crunchy purple sweet potato topper and fresh broccoli and this thing was absolutely delicious! I’m not even going to be humble. I gave it a 10. A full 10. One of the best soups I’ve ever made.

Then there’s Jenn…She liked, ahh, the broth. She said nice things about the broth and toppers, but when I looked up from licking my second bowl clean, Jenn had carefully separated the yuca into a little pile at the bottom of her bowl, discreetly hidden with a napkin. Like an eight-year-old hiding broccoli. Texture issue, she said. Fair. She gave it a 7.0.

That averages out to an 8.5, right? I think that’s how math works. Either way, I loved it, and I now have all of it to take home. Win. I might bring some into APR tomorrow. Or I might hoard it and make this my next official Soup Club offering. Jury is out. If it hits Soup Club, I’ll update with the usual Soup Club and Campbell’s Crew scores. The recipe is on the Partner’s Page. Eat yuca!