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Roots and tubers from Burundi

Inyange (heap-fermented, mouldy cassava flour, Burundi)inyange

Inyange is a Burundian cassava flour made by heap fermentation. Cut cassava is sun-dried for a day, piled under plantain leaves or straw for five days until mould covers it, then scraped, dried again and pounded into a slightly dark flour.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Inyange itself.

DocumentedRoots and tubers6 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedHousehold practice with no fixed amounts in the sources read.
Cassava rootsPeeled, washed and cut into pieces[fermdb]
Plantain leaves or strawTo cover the heap[fermdb]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 6 days

Start
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What changes: Cassava is peeled, washed and cut into pieces

Step 1 of 4
Peel, wash and cut into pieces
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Moulds

Output: cassava pieces.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Inyange is a Burundian cassava flour made by heap fermentation. Cut cassava is sun-dried for a day, piled under plantain leaves or straw for five days until mould covers it, then scraped, dried again and pounded into a slightly dark flour. Made in 4 steps over 6 days. The longest step, heap, cover with plantain leaves or straw, and ferment, takes 5 days (FermDB (Bokulich lab 2009).

Key numbers
Main step5 daysReported[fermdb][makamba2026]Heap, cover with plantain leaves or straw, and ferment

What makes this one different

Inyange is fermented dry in a covered heap until mould grows, not soaked in water like Burundian imikembe and ubuswage.

Related ferments

Safety

Cassava holds compounds that release cyanide. In the one study of inyange, from Makamba Province, hydrogen cyanide fell from 87.94 to 1.36 mg/kg, under the 10 mg/kg FAO/WHO level for flour [makamba2026]. Fresh roots can hold up to 400 mg/kg [fao1990], so that result does not prove the method clears more toxic roots. The heap is meant to grow mould. The same study detected no aflatoxins, but it did not name the moulds or test for other mycotoxins, and it asks for care in storage [makamba2026]. WHO says mould can grow deep into food and that most mycotoxins survive food processing [who-mycotoxins], so scraping off the mould and cooking the flour cannot be counted on to remove them.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

  1. [who-mycotoxins] World Health Organization, Mycotoxins (fact sheet)gov
  2. [fao1990] FAO 1990, Roots, tubers, plantains and bananas in human nutrition, ch. 7, Toxic substances and antinutritional factors (cassava toxicity)gov
  3. [aloys2009] Aloys N., Angeline N. 2009, Traditional fermented foods and beverages in Burundi, Food Research International 42(5–6):588–594, doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2009.02.021 (abstract via Europe PMC/AGRICOLA; the process details come from FermDB's summary of this paper)paper
  4. [makamba2026] Niyukuri J., Sindayikengera S. et al. 2026, Influence of traditional methods of preparing cassava flour on the content of hydrogen cyanide, proteins and aflatoxins in Burundi - Inyange, Ikivunde and Akambaranga in Makamba Province, Food and Nutrition Sciences 17(2), doi:10.4236/fns.2026.172011paper
  5. [fermdb] FermDB (Bokulich lab, ETH Zurich), FermDB_data.tsv row 'Inyange' (citing Aloys and Angeline 2009), CC BY 4.0, read 2026-10web