Wednesday, August 09, 2006

introduce thyself, vegetable.

we love super 88, our local asian supermarket, for its totally affordable produce and herbs (cilantro, 50 cents a bunch! mint, one dollar!). so we happily ignore the fact that we can't read some signs nor ask most staff for help. it usually works pretty well, but every once in awhile we come home with foodstuff that we thought was one thing, but turned out to be something else entirely.

like this:

vegetable 2
it looked like a sweet potato, it felt like a sweet potato, but now we're just not sure it is a sweet potato.

because of this:
vegetable1
white interior, not orange.

cassava? i think not.
regular potato? not an option.

can anybody name the tuber?

17 comments:

Ashbloem said...

I thought sweet potatoes can still be quite light on the inside; as light as pale yellow. Have you tasted?

Ashbloem said...

Ah, never mind. You said white. Idunno.

ann & dabney said...

no, definitely not a sweet potato.

Anonymous said...

jicama?

-sy

ann & dabney said...

jicama is rounder and squatter. good guess though.

LP said...

Yuca. It looks like the yuca- commonly eaten all over Latin America with lots o' butter and salt.

:)

-L.

ann & dabney said...

nope. definitely not yuca. we've made yuca before and it is usually longer, skinnier with a more bark-like exterior. good guess, though.

Anonymous said...

I am guessing kotobuki -
see http://www.saturdaymarket.com/nakashima.htm

- eg, friend of sy

Anonymous said...

coworkers says: i guess the texture would be the biggest clue
did they eat any of it?
was it starchy on the inside?
http://www.saturdaymarket.com/nakashima.htm one of the pics here looks sorta like what they got
the kotobuki
-sy

ann & dabney said...

eg! you might have hit upon something. kotobuki, huh? looks promising...

Anonymous said...

what about a yam? Is it not a yam? They look almost the same as the orangey/yellowy sweet potato.

Anonymous said...

Like this:

http://www.foodsubs.com/Sweetpotatoes.html

martha (girlladyfriend's friend)

ann & dabney said...

hi martha!

i love that foodsubs.com site. what a great idea.

Anonymous said...

I yam what I yam!

Dunno what that tuber is, tho.

Anonymous said...

Are you sure it's not a sweet potato? Have you cooked it and consumed it? Sweet potatos in South Africa looked like that not the freaky orange of the yam.

ann & dabney said...

i think the latest thinking is that it is a variety of the sweet potato - perhaps kotobuki. no, we haven't eaten yet. we were waiting to identify it before we are it.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

In case you haven't gotten a definite answer about the suspect sweetpotato, I can tell you, based on the picture, that I am 90% sure it is a sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas L. Lam.) with a white flesh, (and probably starchier variety). Contrast this to an orange variety we normally call yams. Then there are purple-fleshed sweetpotatoes, salmon-fleshed, etc.

Trust me on this. I have a Ph.D. in sweetpotatoes (well, Horticulture, but I have worked with this species in the last 20 years).

Arthur in Louisiana