Anais do Simpósio Latino Americano de Ciências de Alimentos
Proceedings of 14 SLACA - Latin American Symposium on Food Science

Copioba flour produced in the Recôncavo Baiano is an unfermented cassava flour, renowned and preferred in the local market, due to its special characteristics of crunchiness, texture and flavor, typical of its productive territory, and an essential element of regional food culture. This study aims to analyze the production of this food in its two traditional processes, with clay bowls and stainless steel ovens, and identify the similarities and differences between them, as well as their impacts on the properties of the final product. As for its methodology, comparative study and experimental procedures for the evaluation of sensory attributes were used. The productions of Copioba flour from the Cancela farms (São Félix, BA), with clay bowls, and Tapera (Cruz das Almas, BA), with a stainless steel oven, were analyzed, based on rational selection, on February 6, 2020. In loco, the production was submitted to a descriptive tasting test, involving 25 people, equally chosen by rational selection, among Gastronomy students, public administrators and members of Slow Food Brasil. The sensory attributes analyzed were color, flavor, aroma and texture, according to the criteria of unsatisfactory, satisfactory and fully satisfactory, recorded in an Excel spreadsheet, coded in percentage. The results showed that it is possible to produce the traditional Copioba flour in both processes, under the same technical parameters. In the clay bowls, this is completely manual and required 02 pieces of equipment, while in the stainless steel ovens, the task was mechanized with only 01 equipment. And the tasting test assessed both flours as fully satisfactory for 100% of the tasters. Thus, it is evident that the traditional production of Copioba flour can have fully satisfactory sensory results in both processes, with the flour worker's know-how being the main determinant of the final quality of the product.