They have a more cylindrical shape with rough, scaly skin that's brown and almost tree-bark-like in appearance. Unlike sweet potatoes, most yams are starchy and not very sweet-if anything they taste more like potatoes or yuca (also know as cassava or manioc) than sweet potatoes. There are more than 150 different yam varieties in the world. Yams grow in subtropical and tropical climates like Africa, South America and the Caribbean and are commonly found in cuisines from those areas. Although they may look similar to sweet potatoes, they are an entirely different species (yams belong to the Dioscoreaceae family and are related to grasses and lilies, and sweet potatoes belong to the morning glory family) and not even remotely related. So, What Is a Yam?Ī yam is the modified stem or tuber of a tropical vine called Dioscorea batatas.
Today, USDA regulations require yam labels to be followed by the term "sweet potatoes" when they are technically (and biologically) not yams. In order to differentiate it from the sweet potatoes that already existed (smaller, drier and with white or yellowish flesh), sweet potato growers decided to call the new variety a yam-a word that is rooted in the West African words nyam, nyami or enyame, which mean "to eat." Communities of enslaved Africans were the first to refer to the sweet potato as a yam, as it reminded them of the ones they ate in Africa. Miller at the Louisiana Sate University Agricultural Center. In the 1930s, a new sweet potato variety that was larger and sweeter, with soft orange flesh, was cultivated by Julian C. If yams and sweet potatoes are different from each other, what caused their names to be used interchangeably? The answer: marketing. Related: Are Sweet Potatoes Better Than White Potatoes? Why the Confusion? We'll tell you when the confusion exactly began, and explain, once and for all, what the difference is between sweet potatoes and yams. They are two separate foods that aren't even from the same family. Sweet potatoes and yams are not the same. The truth is, generations of Americans have been getting it wrong. For many of us, the terms sweet potato and yam may be interchangeable.
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