Ridged Gourd/Jhinga

Description:

Soft vegetable unless it grows old on the vine; then it is fibrous. The skin bears ridges. Grows on a creeper with typical Gourd/pumpkin leaves. Flowers are yellow.

Habitat:

Chilapata Forest is near Jaldapara National Park in Dooars, Alipurduar district, West Bengal, India. I spotted this vegetable in the gardens of Chilapata Jungle Camp a tourist resort of sorts located right where the Chilapata forest ends. Jhinga is the Bengali word for it.

Notes:

Sometimes the edible part is allowed to rot away so that the fibrous "skeleton" of the entire vegetable is preserved intact. The seeds are extracted and the rest sold to be used as body scrubbers. The Loofah!