Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Yo Mama's Sweet Taters ARE NOT Sweet Taters!

Well, hello, after a long time, no blog.  We returned from our 2 week+ Mexi/Cali vacation which was a blast! (See later blog re: Mexico visitors)

During one of our meals with Taylor Evans, Otto's childhood friend, and his fiance, Lauren Aponte, we had planned to have pulled pork sandwiches and sweet potato fries.  Well, honestly, when Otto and I have sweet potato fries at home, we just get the Costco frozen ones, sling em in the oven and they're done.  Well this time, we were being adventurous and we had to slice and dice the sweet potatoes to make the fries ourselves. The surprise came when I cut into them and they were not orange.  My mother in law swore she purchased "sweet potatoes".  As I mutter some words about "these taters not being sweet taters", Taylor (man of vast knowledge) valiantly corrects me and states that they ARE sweet potatoes! He proceeds to tell me that the orange potatoes that everyone calls sweet potatoes are actually yams.  I never knew this.  So apparently sweet potatoes are white... and I will tell you-- we cut them up, tossed them in oil, baked them and they were definitely SWEET.  A sweet surprise coming from a potato that was white in color!?

Since we got back home, I've looked some things up about this, and I'm not totally convinced that Taylor was 100% accurate, but I know that sweet potatoes can certainly be white fleshed because I ate them!
Here's one article on this topic from Bon Appetite .  I'll let you form your own theory from here-- interesting nonetheless. http://www.bonappetit.com/tipstools/tips/2008/11/difference_between_sweet_potato_and_yam