A review of cassava semolina (gari and eba) end‐user preferences and implications for varietal trait evaluation

Abstract

The purpose of this review is to support breeders and food scientists by examining research carried out on end-user preferences for gari and its derived dough product, eba, in Africa. The review focused on gari regarding the physical and chemical composition of raw cassava roots, methods of storage, the composition of gari with or without enrichment, and the sensory evaluation of gari and eba. The primary sensory attributes identified to describe gari are colour, taste, texture, aroma and flavour. Texture attribute of importance is crispiness for uncooked gari, and hand feel before consumption for eba. There was a significant correlation between the sensory characteristics of gari and the starch and cyanogenic potential (CNP) contents of the raw roots. Hence, the correlation of the end-user preferences with the chemical composition of the cassava roots could be helpful to breeders in refining selection criteria and developing high-throughput screening methods.

Integrating end‐user preferences into breeding programmes for roots, tubers and bananas

“…Papers address key problems in the breeding of RTB crops in SSA: inadequate understanding of requirements for different end uses, missing information on the physicochemical factors determining these requirements and absence of high‐throughput screening protocols. The review papers provide a broad overview of RTB production and use trends (Scott, 2021), describe case studies of varietal change (replacing old varieties with new ones) (Thiele et al ., 2021), summarise analytical methods for rapid quality assessment of yam and cassava using near‐infrared spectroscopy (Alamu et al ., 2021), describe gari end‐user preferences (Awoyale et al ., 2021) and review the literature to develop a product profile for fried sweet potato in West Africa (Carey et al ., 2021).…”

Beyond “Women's Traits”: Exploring How Gender, Social Difference, and Household Characteristics Influence Trait Preferences

“…The 11 traits included in the 1000minds survey (1000minds, 2020) were determined based on reports, findings, published research (Bentley et al, 2017;Wossen et al, 2017;Teeken et al, 2018Teeken et al, , 2021Ndjouenkeu et al, 2021) and a literature review (Awoyale et al, 2021). They were also informed by discussions with experts and verified by the community-level FGDs.…”

“…That root color is far more important in the South West and North Central than in other regions can relate to the longer fermentation practiced in these regions, which can cause discoloration of the roots. In the other regions, gari is colored using red palm oil (Awoyale et al, 2021;Chijioke et al, 2021;Teeken et al, 2021). Teeken et al (2021) found that a variety disliked because of discoloration in the South West (where there is long fermentation) was not clearly disliked in the South East.…”

“…Gari is a dry semolina-like pregelatinized granulated flour and fufu is a wet fermented paste obtained by water submersion (Bechoff et al, 2018). Gari is most often consumed as the paste product eba which is obtained by mixing gari with hot water (Bechoff et al, 2018;Awoyale et al, 2021). The South West and North Central zones in Nigeria are relatively more connected to larger scale, urban markets, while in the South East and South South home consumption and regional markets dominate (Abdoulaye et al, 2013(Abdoulaye et al, , 2015.…”

Relationship between quality attributes of backslopped fermented gari and the sensory and instrumental texture profile of the cooked dough ( eba )

“…The protein content of the BFG has a negative but not significant correlation with the hardness (p > .05, r= −0.55) of the eba (Table 5). Hardness is defined as an indicator of the most direct response to taste, directly affecting chewiness, gumminess, and cohesiveness in the texture profile analysis (Awoyale, et al, 2021;Goddard et al, 2015).…”