Turning yams into couscous
Yams have a high water content and therefore do not keep well. This poor keeping quality is thought to be the principal constraint to the crop's development. But from Burkina Faso comes an idea to overcome this problem - processing yams into couscous. This new produce takes two forms: enriched couscous which can be kept for up to eight months and ordinary couscous which can be kept for a year or even longer. Yam couscous takes the form of pre-cooked granules and can only be distinguished from wheat couscous by its taste and its white colour. The trickiest stage of the processing lies in the crushing. Peeled yams are first of all cooked for 45 to 50 minutes and then crushed. If this is done too quickly, crushing produces a paste; but if it is done too slowly, the result is a flour. The couscous is then dried for 72 hours. If the drying is not done properly the couscous will turn mouldy and black and no-one will buy it. Drying produces grains of differing sizes which are prepared in the same way as normal couscous. If this product, which is already enjoying considerable success, can be made on a larger scale, it could make a significant contribution to development in rural areas and lead, in time, to the creation of employment as well as greater production of yams. All that has to be found is the money to buy equipment that is appropriate to small-scale processing units. Bernardin Pooda SIATA 01 BP 1485 Ouagadougou 01 BURKINA FASO
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| Format: | News Item biblioteca |
| Language: | English |
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Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation
1998
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/48967 https://hdl.handle.net/10568/99593 |
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