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The crunchy, slightly sweet tubers of shankhalu can be a healthy addition to one's diet

- VIBHA VARSHNEY

IT is not easy to find shankhalu in the fruit and vegetable markets of Delhi unless one waits patiently for February to taste its earthy sweetness. The root vegetable, with white and crunchy flesh and slightly sweet taste, is primarily grown in West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and several northeastern states, and is available around Vasant Panchami, a Hindu festival that marks the beginning of spring. In some states, particularly in West Bengal, where goddess Saraswati is worshipped on the occasion of Vasant Panchami, the tuber is one of the fruits offered to the deity. The turnip-shaped root vegetable with striations on its light brown papery skin resembles a conch or shankh that the goddess holds.

The plant, also known as yam bean, jicama and Mexican turnip, is not native to India. Rather, it is native to tropical America; the first yam bean plant to be described by Carl Linnaeus, the father of taxonomy, in 1753 was a species from Mexico and is known as Pachyrhizus erosus in scientific lexicon. So far, taxonomists have identified five species of the yam bean, of which three-Perosus, P tuberosus and P ahipa-are cultivated for their tuberous roots in Central America, China, India, Southeast Asia, Bangladesh, the Caribbean, French Guiana, Brazil and Central and West Africa.