Okra

A flowering plant (Abelmoschus esculentus) believed domesticated in Africa, possibly in the region of modern Ethiopia or West Africa, and grown for its edible immature seed pods, which release a mucilaginous texture when cooked that is prized in some cuisines and avoided in others. The crop spread with the transatlantic slave trade to the Americas, where it became deeply embedded in the cuisines of the American South, the Caribbean and Brazil, and it remains widely grown across Africa, South Asia and the Middle East as well. India is by far the largest modern producer, and okra is valued as a heat- and drought-tolerant crop suited to tropical and subtropical smallholder farming.