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What is the difference between a sweet potato and a yam? |
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As the holidays get closer many of us start thinking of all the wonderful foods we will be cooking for our friends and families. Some of us will stick to our tried and true recipes while others will want to experiment with something new. This year, as I’ve been piecing together what I want to make, I began thinking of the sweet potato.
I’ve never been the biggest fan of the marshmallow, brown-sugared traditional dish many people make with sweet potatoes and thought of making something completely different. When I came across a recipe I wanted to make, I made my way to the Co-op to buy sweet potatoes. Then I became confused because I saw that not only do we have sweet potatoes but we also have “yams” which look basically like sweet potatoes. So then I began to ask myself, “What is the difference between a sweet potato and a yam”? I made my way to the produce department where the lovely Jessica and Cass were putting their order away and asked them what the difference was. I was informed that true yams are not actually sold in the United States. A true yam is grown in Africa and parts of Asia and South America. These yams can grow to be extremely large and have a very tough skin and soft “meat” on the inside, which can range in color from white and yellow to purple and pink. What Americans call yams is actually the softer variety of the sweet potato. Why, you must be thinking, are we calling sweet potatoes yams? Well, from researching the Internet, it looks like the reason we call sweet potatoes yams is because African slaves in the south saw sweet potatoes, which do resemble yams in Africa, and they called them "nyami," the African word for yam. Talk about learning something new every day! So there you have it. If you ever have any questions about produce, the produce department team is a very informative and extremely friendly group of people. |
