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I wrote this blog to keep notes on my daily life...some is about teaching, some about just plain normal life...who am I kidding? My life is anything but plain and normal! I hope you enjoy! I love to know who is reading so leave me a comment!!!!

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Pass the yams?

could also be called..."Rutty rut rut....GO AWAY!!!"

When I start writing about yams...you know I am in a rut...sorry! But this might be knowledgable for you people like me. Those of you that are smarty pants...move along! move along!

Last night at a faux Thanksgiving dinner...I commented to my friend how yummy the sweet potatoes were. With the same friend, I had had a lovely scruptious sweet potato goodness at a restaurant that we enjoyed just Tuesday night...Can I just tell you how good that thing was?!?!?! It was like a freakin dessert! There I was...potato, pool of butter, and a little brown sugar to top that baby off! Good thing I had just weighed in! I actually saved it till last so I could pretend it was my dessert. I am a genius really!

So back to last night...we were at the table. Jason and I were sitting on the automon (weird weird word!) at the table, so basically my chin on was on the table. Whateva, it's cool. So after I complimented the chef on the sweet potatoes, he insisted on correcting me telling me they were yams. We conversated...my argument being this tasted very similarly to the sweet potato goodness I had "downunder" that previous Tuesday evening. There was no way that was a yam because it was clearly advertised in the menu as a sweet potato and NO ONE false advertises!!!! How would we resolve this?

Mac Guy to the rescue! He literally pulls out his iPhone to research. This is what he found...

Sweet Potatoes: Popular in the American South, these yellow or orange tubers are elongated with ends that taper to a point and are of two dominant types. The paler-skinned sweet potato has a thin, light yellow skin with pale yellow flesh which is not sweet and has a dry, crumbly texture similar to a white baking potato. The darker-skinned variety (which is most often called "yam" in error) has a thicker, dark orange to reddish skin with a vivid orange, sweet flesh and a moist texture.

Yam:The true yam is the tuber of a tropical vine (Dioscorea batatas) and is not even distantly related to the sweet potato.
Slowly becoming more common in US markets, the yam is a popular vegetable in Latin American and Caribbean markets, with over 150 varieties available worldwide. Generally sweeter than than the sweet potato, this tuber can grow over seven feet in length. The word yam comes from African words njam, nyami, or djambi, meaning "to eat," and was first recorded in America in 1676. The yam tuber has a brown or black skin which resembles the bark of a tree and off-white, purple or red flesh, depending on the variety. They are at home growing in tropical climates, primarily in South America, Africa, and the Caribbean.

I was RIGHT!!! I am not usually right!!!! I was this time! YESSS!!!


I would post a picture, but that feature isn't working at this moment...

So remember this...Sweet Potatoes are orange inside, and Yams aren't.

P.S. I hope something funny happens at school Monday!!!!

1 comment:

olddog said...

I would make an inappropriate yam joke, but that would only give up my secret identity.
-tea