The: ca..ava food commodity market and tndc: network in Nigc:ria
2.3.3 Wet cassava products Cassava fresh roots The cassava fresh roots or tubers are usually transformed into the various cassavabased products through processing. Fresh roots of varieties with low cyanide potential are also roasted or boiled and consumed directly (Figure 2.6c) or they may be boiled, pounded and eaten with vegetable soup. Like most cassava products, fresh roots are also sold in both rural and urban markets in igeria. As earlier shown in Table 2.3, fresh roots were found in 33% of the surveyed urban markets.
Figure 2.6c: Boiled fresh roots. Cassava cooked fiifll Prepared cassavafiifll (Figure 2.6d) is a fermented product of cassava. Until recently cassavafiifll was not usually sold in ready-to-eat forms . This phenomenon arose as a result of demand for convenient foods especially in the urban centers. Consequently prepared cassava fitfi' is found in 35% of the urban markets (Table 2.3). Street vendors and hawkers in the cities mainly sell it. Prepared cassavafitfi' is known by many aliases such as " Ioi loi", "Santana", "packet shirt"and "six to six" ("six to six" in relation to cooked cassavafitfi' means that the fitfi' is a high energy giving food, which if taken at six 0 ' clock in the morning could keep one working without food till six o' clock in the evening). The increasing visibility of cassavafitfi' in urban markets implies that it is a desired convenience food This suggests that promoting the dried form of cassavafitfi' flour will improve the quality and quantity of tradedfitfi' flour in the igerian market. Micro scale technologies for driedfitfi' flour are available (Sanni et aI. 2005) and may help product diversification at this level of cassava processing.
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