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Roots and tubers from Ghana

Kokonte (dried cassava)kokonte

Kokonte is cassava peeled, cut into pieces and dried, in the sun or smoke-dried over a fire. The dried pieces are ground into a flour that is stirred into boiling water to make a brown dough. In a related Ugandan method, heap fermentation under moulds, most of the cassava's cyanide was removed.

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

Short entryRoots and tubers

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedOn-farm and household processing with no fixed amounts.
Cassava roots, peeled and cut into piecesOn-farm processing uses knives and fuelwood; the home type, chorchor, is crushed in a mortar[fao-alhassan]
WaterBoiling water to cook the milled flour into a dough[wp-kokonte]
Start
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What changes: Starting material: cassava roots peeled and cut into pieces

Step 1 of 4
Peel and cut the roots
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Done on-farm with knives by hired gangs of mainly young men; women make the home type, chorchor, by crushing peeled cassava in a mortar. 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

Kokonte is cassava peeled, cut into pieces and dried, in the sun or smoke-dried over a fire. The dried pieces are ground into a flour that is stirred into boiling water to make a brown dough. In a related Ugandan method, heap fermentation under moulds, most of the cassava's cyanide was removed. Neurospora sitophila, Geotrichum candidum and Rhizopus oryzae, the dominant moulds in heap-fermented cassava flour of the Alur in Uganda does most of the fermenting.

What makes this one different

Kokonte is made from dried cassava, not soaked in water like chikwangue or grated into a mash like gari. Its colour depends on the cassava used and how far it was dried.

Related ferments

Variants

  • ChorchorHome-made kokonte; peeled cassava crushed in a mortar and sun-dried, made mostly by women.
  • Heap-fermented cassava flour (Alur, Uganda)Roots fermented in heaps until moulds grow, then dried and milled; removes more cyanogens than sun-drying alone.

Safety

Cassava must lose its cyanogens before it is eaten. In Uganda, heap fermentation under moulds cut total cyanogens from 436.3 to 20.4 mg CN equivalents per kg, much more than sun-drying alone, but not always to safe levels; mould growth itself lowered cyanogenic glucosides further in the lab. Plain sun-drying removes only 60 to 70 % of the cyanide and can leave 30 to 100 mg/kg in dry roots [fao1990], so dried chips are not safe just because they are dry. Moulds bring a risk too. Aspergillus flavus, an aflatoxin producer, was one of the three most predominant moulds in market kokonte flour. That Ghanaian study did not test for the toxin; a Ugandan study of heap-fermented flour found none. WHO says most mould toxins survive food processing, so do not rely on cooking to remove them [who-mycotoxins]. Dry the pieces well and keep the flour at 12 % moisture or less.

Hazards the sources name: Aspergillus flavus, one of the three most predominant moulds in market kokonte flour; mould counts 1.70 × 10^3 to 4.03 × 10^5 cfu/g, above the 10^3 cfu/g guide level; Coliforms in kokonte flour from some market vendors.

History and sources

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

Before cassava chips for export arrived, kokonte was the main cassava product of the Atebubu area. It is made on farms by hired labour paid with a share of the product, and income from it pays for preparing yam and cassava fields.

  1. [fao1990] FAO 1990, Roots, tubers, plantains and bananas in human nutrition, ch. 7, Toxic substances and antinutritional factors (cassava toxicity)gov
  2. [fao-alhassan] Al-Hassan R., Egyir I., ch. 7, The potential for farm/non-farm linkages in the cassava subsector in Ghana, FAOgov
  3. [essers1995heap] Essers A.J., Ebong C., van der Grift R.M., Nout M.J., Otim-Nape W., Rosling H. 1995, Reducing cassava toxicity by heap-fermentation in Uganda, International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition 46(2):125–136, doi:10.3109/09637489509012540 (abstract)paper
  4. [essers1995fungi] Essers A.J., Jurgens C.M., Nout M.J. 1995, Contribution of selected fungi to the reduction of cyanogen levels during solid substrate fermentation of cassava, International Journal of Food Microbiology 26(2):251–257, doi:10.1016/0168-1605(94)00116-n (abstract)paper
  5. [awaitey2017] Awaitey B.T., Mills-Robertson F.C. 2017, Filamentous fungi in selected processed indigenous flours sold in Kumasi, Ghana, Food & Nutrition Journal 2(6):146paper
  6. [wp-kokonte] Wikipedia, Kokonte (outline only)wiki
  7. [who-mycotoxins] WHO, Mycotoxins fact sheet (2 October 2023)gov