Arracacha

Arracacha (Arracacia xanthorrhiza) is a root vegetable originally from the Andes, somewhat intermediate between the carrot and celery root. Its starchy taproot is a popular food item in South America where it is a major commercial crop.

Being a South American plant, its most common names are in either Spanish or Portuguese, the two most spoken languages in that continent.

The name arracacha (or racacha) was borrowed into Spanish from Quechua raqacha,[2] and is used in the Andean region. The plant is also called apio or apio criollo (“Creole celery”) in Venezuela and Puerto Rico, zanahoria blanca (“white carrot”) in Ecuador, and virraca in Peru.

Its Portuguese names are usually derived from the plant’s similarity to other well known vegetables and roots. It is known as either mandioquinha (“little cassava”) or batata-baroa (“baroness potato”) in most regions of Brazil, but other common names in certain regions of that country include batata-salsa (“parsley potato”), batata fiúza (“trustworthy potato”), cenourinha-branca (“little white carrot”), and cenourinha-amarela or simply cenoura-amarela (“little yellow carrot” or simply “yellow carrot”), among others.

It is sometimes called white carrot in English, but that name properly belongs to white varieties of the common carrot.