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Roots and tubers from Republic of the Congo

Chikwangue / kwanga / bâton de maniockwanga

Chikwangue is a firm, sour stick of fermented cassava paste. Cassava roots are soaked in water for two to eight days, where lactic bacteria sour and soften them while the root's own enzyme breaks down its cyanide compounds; the soft pulp is freed of fibre, kneaded smooth, wrapped in leaves and boiled once or twice.

Fully documentedRoots and tubers2 days – 8 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceMass balance from Congolese production studied by ORSTOM (Trèche et al. 1992); 100 kg of raw roots give on average 35 kg of paste at 40 % dry matter. Households use no fixed amounts.
Fresh cassava roots (about 38 % dry matter)100 kg[treche1992]
WaterRunning water, a pond or a drum, for retting[treche1992]
Wrapping leaves and stringThe sticks are wrapped in leaves before the first cooking; synthetic string for tying them is becoming general[treche1992]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 days – 8 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: cassava roots, peeled and cut into pieces

Step 1 of 6
Peel and cut the roots
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
L. mesenteroides
L. plantarum
Yeasts

Roots are peeled before retting in 64 % of cases and cut into pieces in 54 %. Output: root 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

Chikwangue is a firm, sour stick of fermented cassava paste. Cassava roots are soaked in water for two to eight days, where lactic bacteria sour and soften them while the root's own enzyme breaks down its cyanide compounds; the soft pulp is freed of fibre, kneaded smooth, wrapped in leaves and boiled once or twice. Made in 6 steps over 2 days – 8 days. The longest step, ret (soak) the roots in water, takes 2–8 days (Trèche S 1992) and runs at 28–32 °C (Trèche S 1992). Leuconostoc mesenteroides, which leads the active phase of retting and Amylolytic Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, which takes over at the end do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step2–8 daysReported[treche1992]Ret (soak) the roots in water
Temperature28–32 °CMeasured[treche1992]Ret (soak) the roots in water
AciditypH 7 → 4.5Measured[treche1992]Ret (soak) the roots in water

What makes this one different

Chikwangue is retted whole in water, like foufou, but instead of being dried and milled the pulp is kneaded into a paste and boiled in leaves. Attiéké and gari are grated and fermented as a mash instead.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Ngudi-yakaLarge chikwangue of more than 5 kg, from the rural south of Congo.
  • FabriquéSmall chikwangue of about 600 g for one person, from urban workshops.
  • MoussomboOne-cook chikwangue, eaten in the northern forest zones and rarely sold.
  • Mbala-mpindaGroundnut paste kneaded in; see its own entry.

Safety

Retting is the main step that removes cassava's cyanide, and it must run its full time. In the ORSTOM study total cyanide was 91–417 ppm in raw roots, still 11–113 ppm in peeled roots after 3 days, and under 6 ppm after 5 days. The report calls the 10–50 ppm of free cyanide left after 4 days no longer toxic, but total cyanide fell below 6 ppm only at 5 days, so do not stop early. FAO notes that short soaking (four hours) is ineffective, while 18 to 24 hours of soaking can halve cyanide, and that cyanide is lost to the water as fermentation breaks the root cells. Chikwangue keeps only a few days before it moulds between leaf and paste.

Hazards the sources name: Clostridia, which make butyrate; low but probably underestimated.

History and sources

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

The ORSTOM survey behind the 1992 report questioned women who make chikwangue, in rural Congo in 1989 and in Brazzaville in 1990. It found that 98.7 % of the urban workshops bought retted paste as their raw material. The report said that using compressed retted paste for transport and storage seems to be a recent innovation that let the urban workshops develop. It also noted that synthetic cloth for the first cooking and synthetic string for tying the leaf parcels were spreading, and that filtering and settling was replacing the slower comb for removing fibre in most regions.

  1. [treche1992] Trèche S., Brauman A., Legros O. et al. 1992, Amélioration de la qualité des aliments fermentés à base de manioc, Opération Congo, final report, ORSTOM, EEC STD2 contract TS2A-0226 (read via web.archive.org)archive
  2. [fao1990] FAO 1990, Roots, tubers, plantains and bananas in human nutrition, ch. 7, Toxic substances and antinutritional factors (cassava toxicity)gov
  3. [tamang2016] Tamang J.P., Watanabe K., Holzapfel W.H. 2016, Review, diversity of microorganisms in global fermented foods and beverages, Frontiers in Microbiology 7:377, doi:10.3389/fmicb.2016.00377paper