Sensorial Characteristics of a Senescent Plantain Empiric Dish (Dockounou) Produced in Côte d’Ivoire

Dockounou, a plantain derivate dish, is proposed on Côte d’Ivoire markets, under various sensorial qualities. Nevertheless, most of time, consumers’ demands are not satisfied. Hence, a survey was undertaken in Abidjan to determine dockounou consumers’ preferential sensorial criteria, for further improvements. 1250 respondents of both genre, from three age categories (junior, major and senior), literates or not and belonging to all the ethnic groups of Côte d’Ivoire, were interviewed through the whole communes. Among the eight sensorial criteria of dockounou, the majority of respondents identified packaging (98.16%), structure (94.47%), taste (91.11%) and the color (80.13%) as the first essential sensorial criteria for the choice of dockounou. They were followed by the texture (74.29%), flavor (68.43%), cooking mode (66.59%) and the type of flour (59.05%). The specific sensorial characteristics most of the respondents expected, independently to the socio-demographic variables, were Thaumatococcus daniellii leaf (55.59%) as packaging, smooth structure (58.44%), sweet-spiced taste (80.65%), brown color (67.32%), hard texture (57.31%), plantain flavor (73.96%), water cooking (48.08%) and maize (38.24%) and rice (37.09%) flours. However, these sensorial characteristics choices were significantly influenced by the ethnic and the age category more than the genre and the education.