Comparing the quality of two traditional fried street foods from the raw material to the end product: The Beninese cowpea‐based ata and the Italian wheat‐based popizza

Abstract

Street food plays a recognized socioeconomic role, offering opportunities of employment particularly for women and providing cheap food to lower income people. West Africa is characterized by a great diversity of traditional foods, widely consumed but poorly investigated. Ata is a fried dough made of cowpea flour, very popular in Benin.In Southern Italy, popizza is prepared in a very similar way as ata, but using wheat flour. This work aimed at comparing the main physicochemical characteristics of ata and popizza, from the raw material to the end product. Cowpea flour showed significantly higher levels of proteins (23.25 vs. 13.48 g 100 g −1 on dry matter), total phenolic compounds (0.73 vs. 0.41 mg g −1 of ferulic acid d.m.), antioxidant activity (2.84 vs. 0.86 μmoL Trolox g −1 d.m.), as well as higher water absorption capacity (1.01 vs. 0.61 g water per gram flour) and particularly higher water solubility index (23.01 vs. 6.69 g 100 g −1 ) than wheat flour. The two flours showed different pasting characteristics: starch swelling occurred at a lower temperature in cowpea than in wheat flour and produced a less viscous gel. Due to absence of gluten and limited viscosity of starchy fraction, ata was less porous and more springy than popizza. Moreover, ata showed higher oil uptake than popizza (22.2 vs. 14.1 g oil 100 g −1 product) and was also characterized by a browner surface than popizza. Knowledge about the quality features of these traditional foods and their raw material could enhance their marketing, with positive effects on local economy.

Fagiolina del Trasimeno, an Italian cowpea landrace: effect of different cooking techniques and domestic storage on chemical and biological features

“…Several varieties of cowpea around the world have been characterised in their genomic, phenotypic and nutritional traits, with features varying widely among varieties and landraces (Boukar et al ., 2019; Gondwe et al ., 2019). Being drought tolerant, it is an essential crop in several African countries (Nigeria, Niger and Burkina Faso are the leading producers) and represents the basic ingredient in the preparation of several traditional Sub‐Saharan food products, as well as a potential and underestimated source of starch for various industrial applications (Boukar et al ., 2019; De Angelis et al ., 2020; Oyeyinka et al ., 2021). It is also appreciated in other parts of the world, including Europe.…”

The Large and Diverse Family of Mediterranean Flat Breads: A Database

“…This bread is typically baked for tourists enjoying the Wadi Rum tours. In this way, the promotion of traditional foods can generate an income to the local communities [ 81 ].…”

Milling performance and bread‐making aptitude of the new soft kernel durum wheat variety Faridur

“…An image section of 25 × 25 mm was cropped from the centre, filtered by thresholding function to obtain the best cell resolution, and analysed as reported in De Angelis et al . (2020). Three replicated analyses were done.…”