Attiéké

Fermented cassava semolina

Attiéké is a fermented cassava semolina from Côte d'Ivoire. Grated cassava is fermented with a traditional inoculum and then pressed, sieved into granules, dried and steamed. The steamed granules are eaten ready to serve.

The product is distinct from the wet cassava pastes and the roasted or fermented flours made elsewhere in West and Central Africa. No sole or original process is claimed here.

What the sampled process shows

Across the sampled batches lactic acid bacteria dominated the cassava pulp and drove most of the acidification. The study recorded a mean pH of 4.4 at 15 hours, and at pressing, drying and the finished product, across its sample set. These are study observations, not proposed home targets.

The starter was a spontaneous traditional inoculum rather than a defined strain. Community composition shifted over fermentation in one representative production, and the paper cautions against generalising its percentages to every producer.

Heritage and use

UNESCO inscribed the skills of attiéké production in December 2024. The announcement concerns the production skills, and the detailed nomination record was not inspected for this page. Serving pairings, named variants and seasonal occasions are not established by the inspected sources.

Relation to plant-0017

A separate Fermentea attiéké record comes from a 2014 inoculum-zone study and gives its own ratios and temperatures. The two records describe different sampled processes; they are compared, not treated as one method.

Gaps

The nomination and consent documents, local-language names, older history and community-specific accounts remain to be checked. No household batch, drying endpoint or storage limit is given in the sources.