Singkamas or jicama's taste bewilders the first timer. First, because it doesn't have any flavor at all. It is a succulent root crop which usually becomes available during summer and its white, firm but super juicy flesh is perfect for hot, hot days! I prefer it as a snack - with salt. It's also good filling for fresh lumpia.
Known as Mexican turnip and yam bean, it is known locally as singkamas.
6 comments:
Wow! You are blogging every day now!?
He,he.. I guess you need some fresh fruits with 0% fat after your intake of halo-halo's and killer cakes ! ;-)
Ha ha! very much! but wait, there's lechon pa waiting for me in your blog, hehe!
Doesn't it strike you how similar the mexican name and the Tagalog name for this fruit is?
I made a search, apparently it comes from the Nahuatl (Aztec language in Mexico) XICAMATL (The x is pronounced like the x in "mexico" and "oaxaca"), then borrowed thru Spanish and became JICAMA, where the j is pronounced like an h, and then when the Spanish came to the Philippines, the name stuck with the fruit, just add a velar nasal between the first and second syllable, and add an 's' at the back, and make the 'h' an alveolar fricative instead of a glottal, and you end up with SINGKAMAS.
I don't know whether the fruit is native to the Philippines and the name was later added, or whether the Spanish carried the fruit to the islands from Mexico.
By the way, I have been referring to it as fruit from the start, but apparently tubers aren't fruits.
i eat it with chowking bagoong...
i brush after.
Amazing research work there, Linguist! Thanks so much.
Sweetskittles: Bagoong ha? At least magkakalasa na siya!
hello mr. blogger!
just wanna say, i also eat singkamas with bagoong! it's better than just salt... try it! hehehe!
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