Gendered food mapping for Pounded Yam in Côte d'Ivoire

Surveys were conducted to examine gendered Food Mapping on pounded yam in 8 villages of 3 departments: Bouaké, Boudoukou and Bouna. Results, in the three zones, showed that the processing in 3 zones is mostly the responsibility of the woman. In Bondoukou and Bouna, men do as well it in the farm or help in the village. In these communities, there are producers, processors and consumers of yam products. A well-structured questionnaire was used for the study, where key informant group interviews (KII), Focus Group Discussions (FGD), Individual interviews (II) and Market Interviews (MI) were captured to provide information on the products. Results showed that varieties of yam mostly planted in the communities were, Florido, Kponan, Bete bete, Krengle, Cameroun. Communities have the same cultural practices, planting in mounds, intercropping. Most couples have common farm. Farmers have 2 main sources of planting materials. Either they keep seeds from the previous harvest (farm), or they purchase seeds from the market. It happens also to obtain seeds from friends or relatives. The quality characteristics of yam tuber that gave a quality pounded yam are healthy tuber and mature tuber, with a yellow second skin, medium shape, tuber with high dry matter. During processing females preferred tuber, which is easy to peel, without colour change when peeled and throughout the processing stages (preferably white, cream, or yellow for yellow yam), absorbs less water during cooking and forms smooth stretchable dough easily. The major food quality attributes in pounded yam are appearance and textural quality. In the communities where the study took place textural quality was ranked first followed by appearence, taste and aroma. The textural attributes were ranked in the following order of preference: stretchability, smoothness, masticability-stickiness> firmness (moderately hard/soft).