My first tomato harvest and purple sweet potatoes

[Jenise]

One of the great discoveries of the last several kitchenless months is how much I like a simple baked yam. I've never cared for them before much (didn't dislike them either, it was more a take-it-or-leave-it thing), but when my friend Carol Macmillan served them one night with a delicious pork chop dinner something just clicked. Suddenly, I loved yams. So I've served them just like that twice since (which is two times more than I've ordered take-out pizza so give me points for keeping it real here), baking them in the toaster oven and serving them with just salt, a drizzle of olive oil and chopped fresh chives on the same plate with a salad of rich greens. Simple and very, very nutritious. I've even managed to conclude that I like the smaller, redder garnet yams better than the larger, orange-y ones.

So last night I decided to take the adventure one step further, and for dinnner we had baked purple Okinawan yams. Now, I have to say the sign said yams, but texturally these are closer to the dense, pasty white-fleshed American sweet potato that I don't like than the rich and creamy orange-fleshed tuber I call a yam. (From what I've been able to tell, which goes by which name is more or less a regional thing). They were very sweet--too sweet--and somewhat glue-y. Which could mean they've had storage issues and a fresher one would have been better, but maybe it's true that this is just their nature. Either way, I would NOT cook these again.

(Btw, there is also a Filipino purple sweet potato/yam which has a darker, rougher skin, and which is powdered and used in some Filipino desserts.)

The best part of the meal was the salad: chard, Italian parsley, mizuna, chives and two tomatoes, all from my garden. A banner day, this, the first tomato from my garden in JUNE. I don't know that I've ever even harvested in July before, let alone June and a number in the teens at that. Compare this to last year in which I sat there all of August wringing my hands, watching as tons of beautiful tomato fruit just there not turning color, and getting bed sores basically from having been on the vine too long. It's going to be a great summer.

Technically speaking, a yam is from Africa and is unrelated to the sweet potato. Chances are you have one of the many, many varieties of sweet potatoes.

Speaking of different types of sweet potatoes, I prefer the ones with orange flesh. I bought some the other day that looked the same on the outside, but inside looked like a regular baking potato. When cooked, the texture was different from the orange ones, but not like a baker. It was sweeter, too, and that is not a plus for me. I like my sweet potatoes as savory dishes, usually with peppers & onions and a spicy seasoning. Sometimes I add Italian sausage, red pepper flakes and fennel seed.

And yes, true yams are not grown in this country. They are grown in South and Central America, the West Indies and parts of Asia and Africa.

[Jenise]

Speaking of different types of sweet potatoes, I prefer the ones with orange flesh. I bought some the other day that looked the same on the outside, but inside looked like a regular baking potato. When cooked, the texture was different from the orange ones, but not like a baker. It was sweeter, too, and that is not a plus for me. I like my sweet potatoes as savory dishes, usually with peppers & onions and a spicy seasoning. Sometimes I add Italian sausage, red pepper flakes and fennel seed.

The thing you bought the other day, that's what I call a sweet potato. Looks like a yam but the skin is a pale brown, kinda beige. (So was the purple Okinawans we had yesterday.) The texture's dense and grainy. The orange-fleshed ones, that's what I call a Yam. But that's a west coast differentiation--I recall a long time on this board we had a discussion about which is which, and I remember that the southerners had a whole different take on it. Yet I don't remember exactly what that was. From what you've said, in your part of the world they're all sweet potatoes?

Yeah, they're all sweet potatoes. We also have our share of mislabeling. More with the canned than the fresh, although from time to time I see bins of sweet potatoes labeled "yams".

Jenise, I've grown sweet potato vines in my patio pots for years, green ones and purple ones, never knowing they they were actually sweet potatoes. I just knew they made very full and lovely vines trailing out of my pots. Last year, I decided to redo the pot on my front walk. As I pulled the green sweet potato vine out, I found four sweet potatoes, one rather large. I was amazed! So, I now have a beautiful purple vine growing in my garden, it is healthy and growing very fast. I just planted it one month ago. When did you put yours in, to get potatoes in June? I don't think the vines are even available here until spring, but I could be wrong.

[Jenise]

Jenise, I've grown sweet potato vines in my patio pots for years, green ones and purple ones, never knowing they they were actually sweet potatoes. I just knew they made very full and lovely vines trailing out of my pots. Last year, I decided to redo the pot on my front walk. As I pulled the green sweet potato vine out, I found four sweet potatoes, one rather large. I was amazed! So, I now have a beautiful purple vine growing in my garden, it is healthy and growing very fast. I just planted it one month ago. When did you put yours in, to get potatoes in June? I don't think the vines are even available here until spring, but I could be wrong.

So they make beautiful vines? That's an interesting facet. But no, I didn't grow these, I bought them in an Asian store (only place I've ever seen purples). It was tomatoes that I harvested.