This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.Find sources: "Iru" food – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) This article may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. You can help. The talk page may contain suggestions. (February 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Irú (Yoruba) locust beans (English) or Eware (Edo) is a type of fermented and processed locust beans (Parkia biglobosa) used as a condiment in cooking. It is similar to ogiri and douchi. It is very popular among the Yoruba people and Edo people of Nigeria. It is used in cooking traditional soups like egusi soup, okro soup (ILA), Ewedu soup, and ogbono soup.[1]

Iru production

Dry iru cakes

Among the Manding-speaking people of West Africa irú is known as sumbala. The Yorubas classify iru into two types:

During fermentation, the reducing sugar content increases, and the total free amino acid content initially decreases; in the end, however, there is a large increase in free amino acid content.[2]

See also

References

  1. ^ Petrikova, Ivica; Bhattacharjee, Ranjana; Fraser, Paul D. (Jan 2023). "The 'Nigerian Diet' and Its Evolution: Review of the Existing Literature and Household Survey Data". Foods. 12 (3): 443. doi:10.3390/foods12030443. PMC 9914143. PMID 36765972.
  2. ^ Abaelu, Adela M.; Olukoya, Daniel K.; Okochi, Veronica I.; Akinrimisi, Ezekiel O. (1990). "Biochemical changes in fermented melon (egusi) seeds (Citrullis vulgaris)". Journal of Industrial Microbiology. 6 (3): 211–214. doi:10.1007/BF01577698. S2CID 24595120.
Categories