There
has been confusion between sweet potatoes and yams for as long as I remember. Sweet potatoes are often mistakenly called
yams in the US. The canned "yams” we find in grocery stores are actually sweet
potatoes. Sweet potatoes are what most of us in the US serve at the holidays.
The more red-skinned of the two are sweet potatoes. Even grocery stores produce
departments often mislabel them.
They are
really two very different vegetables. I
found this article online explaining the many differences between them.
As people gather for meals during the fall holiday season, there
are bound to be disagreements, such as the age-old debate: Are those sweet
potatoes, or yams?
Kelly Murray Young, an assistant agent of horticulture for the
UA Cooperative Extension in Maricopa County, can
settle the debate: Sweet potatoes and yams are not the same thing. They aren't
related. Not even close.
"The way we talk about plants is different from how we talk
about groceries," Murray Young said.
"A green bean is actually a fruit. But in a grocery store,
we don't think of green beans that way," she said. "When we think
about how living things are related to one another – how humans are so
different from jellyfish, for example – we come to these different divisions.
Sweet potatoes are as different from yams as humans are from snakes."
It's all in the classification.
While both come from groups of flowering plants, yams, which are
starchier than sweet potatoes, are in a classification of plants referred to as
“monocots” while sweet potatoes are classified as “dicots”, Murray Young
explained. In fact, the more brightly orange and sweeter sweet potato is in the
morning glory family while yams are more closely related to agave, she also
said.
The rising theory about why there exists widespread confusion
about sweet potatoes and yams draws its source from the days of slavery in the
U.S.
"What is understood is that African slaves in the U.S.
thought sweet potatoes were yams, because they look very similar. That's where
the confusion got picked up," she said.
Also, yams are very hard to find in the U.S., save the
occasional farmers' market or specialty store, said Murray Young, who, along
with her colleagues in Phoenix, hold public workshops to teach people how to
grow sweet potatoes at home and in community gardens.
While yams have long growing seasons and tend not to grow well
in Arizona, sweet potatoes have a shorter season and thrive. Their edible
leaves, which can be used for salads, can be harvested all summer long, with
the root ready to eat in the fall, Murray Young said, adding that sweet
potatoes generally need only 90 to 100 days of growth before they can be
harvested.
"It's hard to find greens that grow through the summer
months, and people are becoming more and more interested in eating local and
fresh foods," Murray Young said. "And people all over the world eat
sweet potato leaves; it is an important part of the diet for people."
For those who generally cook sweet potatoes during the fall
season, Murray Young urges people to go for the fresh roots.
"Try sweet potatoes fresh out of the grocery store instead
of a can," she advised. "Try different styles. You can add your own
sugar to bring it to the sweetness you like, or try it without butter to see
how delicious it is."
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