Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Fish and seafood from Uganda

Dagaa (Uganda)dagaa

In Uganda, small Lake Victoria fish (Rastrineobola, called dagaa in the FAO survey and mukene in Uganda) and Haplochromis are sun-dried without salt. Fermentation occurs during drying, but it is not the aim. This is a boundary entry, a dried fish with only incidental fermentation.

Fully documentedFish and seafood3 days – 5 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo amounts; the fish are dried without salt.
Fresh Rastrineobola argentea (dagaa, mukene)any quantitySpread on the ground or on a mat to dry[fao-ftp329][muhame2020]
Fresh Haplochromis spp.any quantityThreaded on sticks to dry[fao-ftp329]

Total time across the recorded steps: 3 days – 5 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Starting material: fresh Lake Victoria dagaa and Haplochromis, unsalted

Step 1 of 4
Take the fresh small fish
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

In Uganda the small species Rastrineobola argentea and Haplochromis are preserved mainly by sun-drying (FAO). Output: fresh small fish.

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

In Uganda, small Lake Victoria fish (Rastrineobola, called dagaa in the FAO survey and mukene in Uganda) and Haplochromis are sun-dried without salt. Fermentation occurs during drying, but it is not the aim. This is a boundary entry, a dried fish with only incidental fermentation. Made in 4 steps over 3 days – 5 days. The longest step, sun-dry; fermentation occurs during drying, takes 3–5 days (Essuman K.M. 1992).

Key numbers
Main step3–5 daysReported[fao-ftp329]Sun-dry; fermentation occurs during drying

What makes this one different

Dagaa uses no salt, and fermentation is incidental to sun-drying. Burundi's ndagala is also sun-dried without salt, with slight fermentation during drying.

Related ferments

Safety

Sand contamination is a major problem when the fish are dried on the ground. The dried fish are prone to insect attack. In a study of 46 samples of sun-dried mukene from landing sites of Lake Victoria and Kampala markets, 63 % were positive for Salmonella, and the authors call for better hygiene in processing, storage and distribution.

Hazards the sources name: Salmonella (63 % of 46 samples of sun-dried mukene from Lake Victoria landing sites and Kampala markets), and Staphylococcus aureus counts up to 6.66 log cfu/g.

History and sources

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

Commercial fishing for Rastrineobola began in the late 1980s in Uganda, and landings have increased almost exponentially since (Sharpe et al. 2012). The silver fish, locally called mukene, was valued at about 13 million US dollars in 2015 (Muhame et al. 2020).

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [fao-ftp329] Essuman K.M. 1992, Fermented fish in Africa, a study on processing, marketing and consumption, FAO Fisheries Technical Paper 329, section 3.4 and Table 3 (Uganda)gov
  2. [chaula2023] Chaula D., Jacobsen C., Laswai H.S., Chove B.E. et al. 2023, Changes in fatty acids during storage of artisanal-processed freshwater sardines (Rastrineobola argentea), Food Science and Nutrition 11(6)paper
  3. [muhame2020] Muhame A.M., Mugampoza E., Lubuulwa L.L., Byarugaba-Bazirake G.W., Mutambuka M. 2020, Microbiological quality and safety assessment of sun dried Rastrineobola argentea (Mukene) sold at selected landing sites of Lake Victoria and peri urban Kampala city markets, African Journal of Food Science 14(6):154-160, doi:10.5897/AJFS2019.1787 (abstract)paper
  4. [sharpe2012] Sharpe D.M.T., Wandera S.B., Chapman L.J. 2012, Life history change in response to fishing and an introduced predator in the East African cyprinid Rastrineobola argentea, Evolutionary Applications 5(7):677-693paper