Thanksgiving Day approaches , and , like many of you , I have multiple meals to attend to , include a syndicate gathering . This year my mother denote that she has decided to leavesweet potatoesoff the menu . Any adjustment to vacation fare is potentially dangerous in my crime syndicate . I ’m somewhat set in my ways when it comes to our traditions , but when I considered this change I realise I could just have my own candied sweet potatoes here at house to make up for it . How did the sweet spud become so significant , anyway ? And what does your family call it ?
Some families call their orange side dish “ glaze yam ” and some just say “ sweet potato casserole . ” There are mash , fried and broil angelic white potato ravisher as well as sweet tater pie , muffin , bar and sparkler cream . One thing is for certain , it will be on most every Thanksgiving table … except mine … but I ’m not bitter .
I am a stickler that we call it a seraphic white potato . It appear that the mental confusion begin during the early days in our state . The enslaved African people had come from a homeland where truthful yams grow . There , the yam was not just about bouquet and marshmallows . alternatively , the yam had vast cultural importance . Yams were involved in union dialogue and harvest celebrations . Today , Nigeria is the largest producer of yamsand throw a yam plant festival yearly . Perhaps there is a connection to our Thanksgiving here . It is said that the African slaves , upon see the sweet potato in the South , reminded them of their yam from home . If that is true , the sweet potato would have been an important connection to their civilization and not merely a familiar food .
Each year during Nigeria ’s yam plant fete , people offer some of the tuber to their antecedent before sharing it with attendant . This is done to give thanks for the harvest and for the blessings allow to the living residential area . It would be no coincidence in my mind , then , that the South brought forth mellisonant potato pie and candy “ yams ” as part of the Thanksgiving custom .
Yams and fresh potato are from two very unlike families . There are eight metal money of yam in the Dioscorea genus and really only one species of sweet murphy in the morning glory genus of Ipomoea that is worth run through . Yams and sweet tater behave jolly exchangeable nutritionary profile , with sugared Irish potato enjoy a much gamey genus Beta - carotin content . Yams wo n’t arise here in the United States and are uncommitted primarily in ethnic grocery store . The USDA tally to this mental confusion by calling the orange sweet white potato vine “ yam plant ” to differentiate between the light and dark varieties of the tuber . If department official were sample to be more true to the yam , they would have call the light varieties by the name , not the orange tree . Yams are almost all universally light in color , with the exclusion of the purple yam that produce primarily in China .
Neither plant is a aborigine to the United States , but sweet potatoes are rather gentle to grow in our climate . If you grease one’s palms an organic variety for Thanksgiving , you might can even grow your own “ slip ” or plant from it . you’re able to cut off the eye just like you would from a potato and secure them partially submerged in a glass of water . This slip , when institute out next spring in full sunshine and well - run out grease , can produce many more mellifluous potatoes for next year ’s mesa .
If you sit down to Thanksgiving to bask a sweet , orange vegetable side - dish , it ’s a fair bet you are eating a angelic white potato vine and not a yam plant , disregardless of what your family calls it . It ’s a fun thought for me to ponder the origins of this custom . Are we enjoying yet another solid food , likeokra , that made its agency onto the American plate because of an enslaved people whose voice we thought had been quieten ?
