Meaning
The chayote — a pale green, wrinkled, pear-shaped squash with a mild, faintly sweet taste, common in Jamaican cooking. Cho-cho is added to soups and stews, steamed as a vegetable, boiled and served with saltfish, or grated into dishes, prized for how it soaks up seasoning and stretches a pot. Easy to grow on a rambling vine in the yard, it is a humble, everyday staple of the Jamaican kitchen, cheap, filling, and endlessly useful.
Examples
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Put some cho-cho inna di soup.
Put some chayote in the soup.
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Steam cho-cho wid di fish.
Steam chayote with the fish.
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Cho-cho grow pon a vine.
Chayote grows on a vine.
Origin
From a Caribbean and Latin American name for the chayote squash; called 'christophene' in the eastern Caribbean and 'choko' elsewhere.
How it’s used
A cheap, mild, everyday vegetable, valued for stretching soups and stews. Not to be confused with 'cho', the exclamation.