# Please Resolve a Controversy



## bookslover (Jan 13, 2009)

Are yams and sweet potatos the same thing?


----------



## Theognome (Jan 13, 2009)

No. Yams are actually an African veggie, while sweet potatoes are American natives.

Theognome


----------



## Southern Presbyterian (Jan 13, 2009)

Yam and Sweet Potato Differences


----------



## PresbyDane (Jan 14, 2009)

No they are not


----------



## LawrenceU (Jan 14, 2009)

Not even close. I'd never cook a possum with yams.

I had some friends from Africa in college. Somehow they had yams. Had them at every meal. They would use mashed yams and sop it in what ever 'stew' they had made. No flatware needed. And, they liked their food hot. I loved it.


----------



## TimV (Jan 14, 2009)

In PNG we had about 300 types of sweet potatoes. Every color, every flavor. Too bad the importation laws are so complex and inefficient. There was one type that was white with read stripes inside the flesh. One that tasted nutty.

Some time when you are barbequing, take some sweet potatoes and bury them in the hot ashes for 20 minutes or to when they get soft, and see how they taste.


----------



## Nate (Jan 14, 2009)

LawrenceU said:


> Not even close. I'd never cook a possum with yams.



... I hope


----------



## LawrenceU (Jan 14, 2009)

NateLanning said:


> LawrenceU said:
> 
> 
> > Not even close. I'd never cook a possum with yams.
> ...



Nope.


----------



## Seb (Jan 14, 2009)

TimV said:


> In PNG we had about 300 types of sweet potatoes. Every color, every flavor. Too bad the importation laws are so complex and inefficient. There was one type that was white with read stripes inside the flesh. One that tasted nutty.
> 
> Some time when you are barbequing, take some sweet potatoes and bury them in the hot ashes for 20 minutes or to when they get soft, and see how they taste.



That sounds good! 

You don't need to wrap them foil?


----------



## Nate (Jan 14, 2009)

LawrenceU said:


> NateLanning said:
> 
> 
> > LawrenceU said:
> ...



Hmmm... I'll have to put that on the list of things this city boy has to try.


----------



## TimV (Jan 14, 2009)

No, you just have to time it right so they're still warm when you eat your meal. The skin get's crispy, and you just cut them open like a potato that you've baked. That way you can cook your meat and have a side dish while you're talking to your friends around a fire and don't have to go to the kitchen.


----------



## LawrenceU (Jan 14, 2009)

You can do the same thing with regular potatoes. They are tasty as well. Not nearly as tasty as sweet potatoes, but much better than when they are roasted in the oven.

Oh, just make sure that if you are doing this with regular potatoes to poke a small slit in them with a knife or they may very well explode. It isn't something you want to experience.


----------



## he beholds (Jan 14, 2009)

What we, in the States, call candied yams/sweet potatoes are the same thing: sweet potatoes. 
In Africa, there are other things, called yams. 
So here, when one says yams and another says sweet potatoes, the answer would be, yes, they are the same thing.


----------



## JBaldwin (Jan 14, 2009)

I, too, heard the words yams and sweet potatoes used interchangeably.


----------



## TimV (Jan 14, 2009)

It's pretty much only in the South of the US that they are used interchangeably, but you're right, they are commonly referred to there in that way.

In PNG they grew yams as well as sweet potato, and they taste like slugs. I've never eaten slugs, but the color and consistency and I imagine the taste are similar.

Yams are from the Dioscorea family, and many types are used for food and medicine, but they often have to be prepared carefully to keep from poisoning the eater.

I grow a couple species as ornamentals, since many have a "caudex" a stem which imitates a rock or something while it's dormant to protect it from herbivores, and they look really cool.

So there are actually several plants that are called yams, and unlike sweet potatoes you've often got to use botanical names to keep from confusing them.


----------



## JBaldwin (Jan 14, 2009)

In any case, I loved baked sweet potates.


----------



## Honor (Jan 14, 2009)

I've heard that eating enough wild yams can help you have twins... Sweet potatoes just taste good at Thanksgiving


----------



## BertMulder (Jan 14, 2009)

Honor said:


> I've heard that eating enough wild yams can help you have twins... Sweet potatoes just taste good at Thanksgiving



Naah, that's an old wife's tale...

You (and your husband) both have to eat fish. And then catch the Egyptian flu.


----------



## jwithnell (Jan 14, 2009)

Seems like I read that the word "Yam" was introduced as part of a marketing campaign and we've been confused here in the US ever since. 

Harold McGee's _On Food and Cooking_ says the yam is related to grasses and lilies and can reach 100 lbs in its native ranges in the tropics (both new and old world). 

Here in the US, I love our sweet taters in pies, baked, and even fried.


----------



## jaybird0827 (Jan 14, 2009)

Where can we get sweet potatoes (as distinct from yams)? It's been years.


----------



## jwithnell (Jan 14, 2009)

I see them sold fresh in the grocery store produce section and also canned. I usually keep a few cans in the pantry.


----------



## Mushroom (Jan 14, 2009)

> Some time when you are barbequing, take some sweet potatoes and bury them in the hot ashes for 20 minutes or to when they get soft, and see how they taste.


That's the only way I've ever liked sweet potatoes. Very good.


----------



## Reformingstudent (Jan 14, 2009)

"They ain't no myskery to life-ya gits borned, an' tha' all they is to it !"
"I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam !"


----------



## kvanlaan (Jan 14, 2009)

I have heard that yams aid in fertility in general, but not favoring one sex or the other.


----------

