The yeheb (Cordeauxia edulis) is the sweet, chestnut-like seed of a drought-hardy evergreen shrub of the arid Horn of Africa, and one of the most important indigenous wild foods of the Somali and Ethiopian Ogaden. Where most desert plants offer little, the yeheb produces a fleshy, starchy kernel that tastes sweet and nutty — often likened to chestnut, cashew or macadamia — and is eaten raw straight from the pod, boiled, or roasted over coals. For the nomadic pastoralists of the region it has long been a prized dry-season staple: a calorie-dense, storable, naturally sweet nut that ripens where sorghum and maize will not grow, gathered from wild stands and carried as travel food across the thornscrub.