Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Sauces and condiments from Bondoukou department, Gontougo region, north-eastern Côte d'Ivoire

Conôro (fermented baobab, kapok and okra seed-flour condiment, Côte d'Ivoire)conôro

Conôro is a sour seasoning from north-eastern Côte d'Ivoire. Seeds of baobab, kapok or okra are cleaned, washed, dried, pounded and sieved to flour, mixed with water and fermented as a dough in closed containers for 2 to 7 days, most often 3. The dough is then dried for 3 days and moulded into small balls.

Fully documentedSauces and condiments5 days – 10 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedMethod recorded in a 2017 survey of 600 people; the paper gives no amounts.
Baobab, kapok or okra seedsOne kind alone or two or three mixed; seven types in all[adaye2017]
WaterMixed with the seed flour into a dough[adaye2017]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 5 days – 10 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Dried fruits are crushed and the seeds washed and sorted

Step 1 of 5
Crush the dried fruits, take out and wash the seeds
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Bacillus
Lactic acid bacteria

Output: clean seeds, with stones and perforated seeds sorted out.

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

Conôro is a sour seasoning from north-eastern Côte d'Ivoire. Seeds of baobab, kapok or okra are cleaned, washed, dried, pounded and sieved to flour, mixed with water and fermented as a dough in closed containers for 2 to 7 days, most often 3. The dough is then dried for 3 days and moulded into small balls. Made in 5 steps over 5 days – 10 days. The longest step, mix with water and ferment the dough in a closed container, takes 2–7 days (Adayé Y.K 2017). Bacillus and lactic acid bacteria strains isolated from conôro made in Bondoukou does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step2–7 daysReported[adaye2017]Mix with water and ferment the dough in a closed container
AciditypH 5.7–5.8Measured[kongoza2024]Mix with water and ferment the dough in a closed container

What makes this one different

Conôro is a fermented dough of seed flour and water. The survey's process diagram has no cooking step, and the dough sours in a closed container. Its nearest relative named in the sources is Ghanaian kantong, a kapok-seed ferment whose pH fell from 6.5 to 4.7 in 48 hours.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Single-seed conôro (C.B baobab, C.K kapok, C.G okra)One seed type; respondents' shares were baobab 23.70–29.5 % and kapok 21.61–37.11 %, okra 7.5–11.15 %.
  • Mixed conôro (C.BK, C.BG, C.KG, C.BKG)Two or three seed flours combined; baobab with kapok is the most common mix, at 16.11–21.18 % of respondents.

Safety

The survey's process diagram has no cooking step, and the survey gives no microbiological data for conôro. In kantong, a similar kapok-seed ferment, enterobacteria including Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli were isolated.

Hazards the sources name: In kantong, a related Ghanaian kapok-seed ferment, enterobacteria including Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli and Enterobacter cloacae, with Acinetobacter baumannii and Enterococcus faecium also isolated.

History and sources

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

The first study found is an ethno-nutrition survey of 600 people in the Bondoukou department, carried out from February to May 2017, whose authors say no sustained research on conôro existed. People over 65 knew it best, and the authors link this to knowledge passing between generations slowly vanishing. A 2024 paper from the same Abidjan university group then tried controlled production of conôro with Bacillus and lactic strains isolated from Bondoukou conôro.

  1. [adaye2017] Adayé Y.K., Faulet M.B., Dan C.G., Fagbohoun J.B., Yao K., Kouamé L.P. 2017, Endogenous knowledge and importance of 'conôro', fermented condiment from seeds of baobab, kapok and okra by Bondoukou department populations (north-eastern Côte d'Ivoire), Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development 7(12):244–261, doi:10.18488/journal.1005/2017.7.12/1005.12.244.261 (full text read from the AgEcon Search copy)paper
  2. [ametefe2025] Ametefe E.N., Thorsen L., Danwonno H., Agoha R.K., Glover R.L.K., Dzogbefia V.P., Jespersen L. 2025, Molecular characterization of culturable yeasts and nonspore-forming bacteria associated with fermented kapok seeds (kantong), International Journal of Food Science 2025:6452183, doi:10.1155/ijfo/6452183 (kantong, a related product)paper
  3. [kongoza2024] Kongoza K.S., Coulibaly W.H., Djina Y., Gonnety T.J., Faulet M.B. 2024, Controlled production trials of conôro, A natural condiment, International Journal of Biomolecules and Biomedicine 18(3):1–10, doi:10.5281/zenodo.13733945 (full text read from the Zenodo copy)paper