ISSUE 49, GOOD FOR YOU, Part 6: Sweet Potatoes without Sugar
Sweet Potatoes without Sugar
The very best camp fire foods are fresh fish roasted over fire, berry cobbler in a Dutch Oven, and sweet potatoes roasted in ashes. The skin, if charred, strips off easily. Nothing else needed—just the tender caramelized flesh of the orange tater. I have not doubt this is the healthiest way to consumer the tubers. Back in the 1800s a regional split developed over how to prepare sweet potatoes and the ones to prepare. Northerners liked to boil potatoes, and the potato they preferred was the Nansemond (later called the Jersey). Curiously the northerners didn’t use the cooking water where much of the soluable nutriment wound up. Southerns preferred bakers or roasters with which they prepared pone and other classic fireside dishes. Certain varieties lent themselves to baking: the Georgia Pumpkin Yam, the Nancy Hall, the Porto Rico. There was also a substantial following for the white-fleshed West Indian sweet potatoes, such as the Hayman. They have a different flavor. When it comes to retention of the innate nutrition of a sweet, baking or roasting performs best. The A vitaman, B6, the betacarotine, the potasium does not degrade with cooking.
You may have see purple varieties of sweet potato appearing in the produce sections of your local grocery stores. I’ve seen Charleston Purple, Purple Majesty, Stokes Purple, Murasaki Japanese Purples, and the related Okinawan (or Hawaian Purple. They have increased because medical studies indicate that anthocyanin, the chemical that gives the sweets their purple color (blueberries too), may have strong anti-carcigenic virtues. Despite their shared color, the varieties listed above vary in terms of culinary quality: the Charleston tastes the most health food-like with muted sugar and a medicinal bitter note. The Murasaki’s tend to be the sweetest and starchiest.
Many people can’t resist sprinkling that brown sugar on the cooking potatoes. Candied sweet potatoes seem to speak holiday hominess. Some families in the South have a soufle-like sweet potato caserole—pecan and cinammon top, a custardy brown sugar belly, and a nutmeg afternote. I remember my encounters with these caseroles fondly, but nowadays tend to steer clear.
I’m not even going to talk about sweet potato pie! But I’ve written on that before
As long as you have a classic sweet potato variety, roast it or bake it plain. Prick a few holes in the skin. You’ll know if you have a good variety (the Bradshaw for instance-see below) becuase it will begin to weep syrup in the heat.