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African fermented foods: from art to science

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Summary

The fermentation of food has the following advantages: longer keeping quality, variety in flavour, making inedible foods edible. In addition, the fermented foods have enhanced nutritional values and decreased toxicity. Unfortunately, production of these foods in most African countries is largely unsophisticated and does not allow for increased production to meet increasing demand. To improve the production, there should be scientific investigations into the microbial culture involved in the fermentation, the processing equipment and the methods of optimizing the fermentation conditions.

Research on the fermentation of African locust bean and soybean to producedawadawa (iru) is reviewed with a view to exposing the scientific background available for transforming the production from art to science.

Résumé

La fermentation des aliments possède les avantages suivants: une qualité de plus longue conservation, une variété de flaveurs, et la transformation d'aliments non comestibles en aliments comestibles. De plus, les aliments fermentés ont une valeur nutritonnelle accrue et une moindre toxicité. Malheureusement, la production de ces aliments fermentés reste largement fruste dans la plupart des pays africains et ne permet pas une production accure pour satisfaire une demande en augmentation. Pour améliorer la production, il importerait d'investiguer dans la science des cultures microbiennes impliquées dans la fermentation, dans l'équipement technologique et dans les méthodes d'optimisation des conditions de fermentation. On passe en revue la recherche sur la fermentation de la caroube africaine pour produire ledawadawa (iru) dans l'esprit d'exposer les connaissances de base disponibles pour transformer cette production d'un art à une science.

Resumen

La fermentación de alimentos tiene las siguientes ventajas: calidad de conservación superior, variedad de sabores y permite el consumo de productos previamente incomestibles. Además los alimentos fermentados tienen mayores propiedades nutritivas y menor toxicidad. Desafortunadamente la elaboración de este tipo de alimentos en la mayoría de paises africanos esta poco desarrollada y no permite el incremento de producción necesario para satisfacer el incremento de la demanda. Para mejorar la producción deberían de realizaese estudios sobre los procesos microbiológicos envueltos en la fermentación, sobre el equipamiento y sobre los métodos para optimizer las condiciones de fermentación.

Se hace una revisión de los trabajos realizados sobre la fermentación de una variedad africana de soja para la producción dedawadawa (iru) exponiendo la información disponible a fin de transformar esta elaboración de arte en ciencia.

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  1. Department of Botany and Microbiology, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

    S. A. Odunfa

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Odunfa, S.A. African fermented foods: from art to science. Mircen Journal 4, 259–273 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01096132

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