They have bumpy, tough gray-brown skin (that looks almost like the bark of a tree and must be peeled away with a knife as it’s far too tough for a vegetable peeler).
Yams are commonly used in Caribbean and West African cooking and can grow as long and thick as an adult arm. True yams are part of an entirely different genus ( Dioscorea sweet potatoes belong to Ipomoea in the morning glory family) and are more akin to yuca in texture and flavor. The skin of a yam (left) looks kind of like tree bark, while a sweet potato (right) is smoother with a reddish-brown tinge.ĭorling Kindersley/Getty Images So, what are yams? The word yam is derived from nyam, nyami, or nyambi, verbs of various African dialects meaning either “to taste” or “to eat.” The prevailing theory is that enslaved Africans applied these terms over time to the sweet potatoes available in the Americas, which took the place in their diet of the staple root vegetable grown in much of West Africa. The reason for the name mix-up, she explains, is because Louisiana sweet potato growers in the 1930s marketed a new breed of orange-fleshed sweet potatoes as “yams” to distinguish their crop from other states’ produce-and it stuck. It’s all a facade! “Most of the so-called yams you see in American grocery stores are actually orange-fleshed sweet potatoes,” explains Mary-Frances Heck, a former BA staffer and the author of Sweet Potatoes.
So, what’s the difference between a sweet potato and a yam? At most markets: absolutely nothing. Do you ever find yourself loitering in the produce aisle, internally debating the merits of yams versus sweet potatoes? At many grocery stores, they often look identical, but I’ve found that “yams” can be as low as 79 cents per pound, while “sweet potatoes” cost $2.49 per pound.
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