You know, I take a lot on faith by the outward appearance of the various tubers I eat here. The lady I bought these from mumbled something about them being sweet and potatolike, and something that sounded like "jamote," along with advice to scrub and bake them, but I have never before seen Ipomoea batatas with purple striped centers like these have, and I am used to yams being a surreal neon orange colour inside. They cook up similar to conventional sweet potatoes and have a slightly mealy, sweet texture. The purple colour does not cook up, and the skins (also purple when washed up) are very thin and edible. The uncut tuber looks exactly like a sweet potato. Anybody out there know what I just ate? Are they odd strange mutant sweet potatoes? Some variety of yam that I've never encountered before? Odd alien vegetables in a baking dish? Something I maybe should not have eaten? The were extremely tasty, and I'd love to put a name to them if at all possible....
They are sweet potatoes. Used to grow sweet potatoes growing up in the tropics. The flesh comes in white, yellow, orange, to various shades of purple. There are variations in tuber shape and size, and texture, taste and colour of the flesh. The way I like them is to put the tubers, whole, unpeeled, in a shadow pan of water. Boil covered, until the water is down to a sticky syrupy consistency. Then, turn down the heat and allow to caramelise - yummy!! In Canada, we get them from T & T, of course. And it's much quicker to put them in a ceramic caserole pot, covered, with a little water, and cooked in a microwave oven. Fast and convenient, but I do miss the caramel bit.
Very interesting..... I actually like to put them in ceramic, put a bit of maple syrup or panela syrup in with the water, splot a chicken breast on top, spice, and bake. They semi-caramelize and fill up with tasty gravy flavour at the same time. Then again, I also like the flavour of raw ones. And what's T&T? When I lived in Canada I always got my sweet potatoes at the farmer's markets....
Yeah, well. I doubt that they'd sell me anything more toxic than manioc at the farmer's market. If I bought something that poisoned me, where would their repeat business be?
Though off topic, T&T is a large supermarket format, specializing in all Asian foods (south-east Asia, all the way up to Korea & Japan). It's seems to have had great success and is quickly growing in markets that can support them (ie. our small, predominately WASP city can only support the independent 'corner store').
That's not off topic at all - I asked. And what's wrong with independant corner stores? The tiendas (our equivalent) are a cornerstone of the communities.
Well nothing is wrong with the corner store and they have their market (I use several). As you know, the car & the suburbs are predominant in North American society so one stop shopping with a food variety selection far greater than a corner store can offer does tend to draw people in. When I have the opportunity, I pick things up there that I couldn't possibly (or at least easily) find anywhere else.
Not sure, but if they are yams, you might not need to worry about getting pregnant any time soon. :-O As Weekend G said, there are purple sweet potatoes on the market. Have tried them and can say they certainly are yummy!! It does seem odd that a tropical crop plant of New World origin would be found in a market specializing in Asian foods in WASPy city in Canada. Its very surreal.
You can buy vegetables and fruits from many corners of the world in T & T. My favourite is the durian. The frozen Thai "Mon Thongs" are pretty good, but takes more than 24 hours to thaw!
Am I missing something here.......surely T&T means Trinidad and Tobago? The thread starts to make more sense if that is what the 1st response poster was referring to? MXB
No, they are referring to a chain of stores.... And, to sum up, I'm glad that at least for once I was eating what I suspected I was eating. You never really know down here....
Sweet potatoes did indeed originate in the Americas (Central America, maybe Peru) and spread west across the Pacific, eventually revolutionizing the economy and population of New Guinea (much as potatoes did Ireland) and prospering in east Asia. Oddly, sweet potatoes were never much of a staple in America.
