**1. Introduction**

Cassava is widely grown and used in different agroecological zones across many African countries. Cassava utilization patterns vary considerably in different parts of the world and Nigeria; most of the cassava produced (90%) is used for human food. Cassava can be transformed into different products such as gari and fufu [1]. Gari, a roasted solid-state fermented cassava meal, is the most popular product consumed in West Africa and the most important food product in the diet of millions of Nigerians and Ghanaians [1]. Fufu, a submerged fermented and sieved cassava root, is ranked next to gari as an indigenous fermented food in the southern part of Nigeria [2]. Gari and fufu are prepared into the dough by reconstituting in boiled water and consumed with the preferred soup; thus, their textural attributes are key to consumer acceptability of the products [3].

Texture is the sensory and functional manifestation of the quality attributes of foods detected through the senses of vision, hearing, and touch and from kinesthetic qualities [4]. The texture of cooked root and tuber crops and their products are often cited as a primary determinant of the acceptability of improved and local cassava varieties, which may be influenced by higher polysaccharides such as pectin. This is because pectin has been reported to improve the structural and textural attributes of plant-based products. The fundamental constituent of the pectin molecules is D-galacturonic acid monomers in methyl ester conformation linked by α-(1 → 4) glycosidic bonds [5]. The biological function of pectin is to cross-link cellulose and hemicellulose fibers, providing rigidity to the cell wall. Pectin is also a major component of the middle lamella, where it helps to bind cells together. It was observed by Franck et al. [6] that cassava roots have different pectin contents depending on the varieties. This was corroborated by Favaro et al. [7], who reported that uronic acid, which is the main constituent of pectin, was extracted from cassava root cell walls. Also, the abundance of pectin structures in cassava cell walls was confirmed by coloring with Coriphosphine-O, which binds to acidic polysaccharides, including pectin [8].

It has been shown that the action of pectin methyl esterase on pectin affects the food textural quality of plant-based food products, either favorably or deleteriously, depending on the product at hand [9]. However, results obtained by Ampe et al. [10] suggest that cell wall degradation is initiated by endogenous pectin esterase located in the intercellular space and released by pH decrease, followed by the action of microbial polygalacturonase and pectate lyase that depolymerizes pectic chains in the cassava roots. Hence, the effect of pectin on the textural attributes of cooked gari and fufu dough may differ because of their different processing methods. Therefore, this chapter aims to discuss the possible effect of pectin on the textural attributes of cooked gari and fufu dough using studies that have been done on pectin and textural attributes of other starchy foods.
