The Serumpun Codex · Leaves, ferns and palms
Cassava leaf
The young leaves of the cassava plant, pounded and always cooked.
The entry
- Name
- Cassava leaf
- Other names
- Empasak (Iban); udung ubih, the pounded leaf dish (Kelabit); daun ubi kayu (Malay)
- Scientific name
- Manihot esculenta Crantz
- What it is
- The young leaves of the cassava plant, pounded and always cooked.
- Knowledge from
- The Iban, who make daun ubi tumbuk, and the Kelabit, who make udung ubih.
- How it is used
- Pounded, then boiled thoroughly, sautéed or roasted in bamboo. Never eaten raw.
- In the French Borneo kitchen
- Slow-cooked, in Course II, Forest, at Osaka.
- Season and place
- In Sarawak, local farmers grow cassava mainly for subsistence, intercropped with hill padi or planted after the padi harvest. No season for the leaf harvest is recorded.
- Conservation status
- Not applicable: a cultivated crop
- Codex Alimentarius
- No Codex standard
- Medicinal knowledge
- Held privately by the community
- Consent
- Given, recorded by CHASS, 30 October 2026
Still to be confirmed: who shared it with Serumpun.
Sources
- Sarawakian cuisine
- WADD
- ECHO, citing FAO
- Sarawak Department of Agriculture, ARC Articles, January 2013 (tapioca)
- PU Chien, Tapioca: a vital food crop with so many uses, The Borneo Post, 9 April 2017 (PressReader)
Added to the Codex on 1 November 2026. Sources last checked on 1 November 2026.
Anyone may cook with this knowledge, commercially too, provided the community it comes from is credited by name. To correct or withdraw this entry, write to the Custodian at connect@chefjameswon.com.
How to cite this entry
Serumpun Sarawak (2026) ‘Cassava leaf’, The Serumpun Codex, ed. James Won. Available at: https://www.chefjameswon.com/serumpun/codex/cassava-leaf/ (sources checked 1 November 2026).
Quote any entry with this citation, and name the community whose knowledge it is.