The marama bean (Tylosema esculentum) is a wild, drought-hardy legume of the Kalahari and the sandy savannas of Southern Africa, prized for large, oil- and protein-rich seeds that are roasted like cashews or ground into a cocoa-like drink. A sprawling perennial vine that also stores water and starch in a massive underground tuber, it is one of the most important indigenous food plants of Botswana, Namibia and neighbouring lands — a "supermarket in the sand" that has fed San and other peoples of the region for millennia.