Are yams and sweet potatos the same thing?

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Richard T. Zuelch, M.Div
Ruling Elder, OPC (not currently serving)
Westminster Presbyterian Church, CA (OPC)
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Devout souls do not take offence at the depths and difficulties of God's Word, but are, thereby, drawn to intenser contemplation of them. - Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910)

No. Yams are actually an African veggie, while sweet potatoes are American natives.

Theognome

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Bill Cunningham
Covenant Reformed Church, URC
Kansas City
There are three kinds of people- those who can count, and those who can't.

Yam and Sweet Potato Differences

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James Helbert, Wytheville, VA
Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church, RPCUS
TheBibleAlone.com / The Edinburgh Inn
"Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?” - Zechariah 3:2

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No they are not

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Martin - Reformed
Husband to the most godly, honorable and loyal wife Line
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Webpage www.5solas.dk
Free Online Reformed Seminary - http://www.tnars.net
Soli Deo Gloria

Not even close. I'd never cook a possum with yams.

I had some friends from Africa in college. Somehow they had yams. Had them at every meal. They would use mashed yams and sop it in what ever 'stew' they had made. No flatware needed. And, they liked their food hot. I loved it.

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We shall not adjust our Bible to the age; but before we have done with it, by God's grace, we shall adjust the age to the Bible. - Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Lawrence Underwood, Jr.
Pastor - Providence Family Fellowship / Mobile, Alabama
1644/46 LBC
My Blog - Imprimis

In PNG we had about 300 types of sweet potatoes. Every color, every flavor. Too bad the importation laws are so complex and inefficient. There was one type that was white with read stripes inside the flesh. One that tasted nutty.

Some time when you are barbequing, take some sweet potatoes and bury them in the hot ashes for 20 minutes or to when they get soft, and see how they taste.

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Tim Vaughan
Member, Redeemer Presbyterian, OPC,
Santa Maria
California

... I hope

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Nate
Protestant Reformed Churches in America
Ann Arbor, MI

Nope.

That sounds good!

You don't need to wrap them foil?

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Steve Butts - Former SBC-er
Three Forms of Unity - Bradenton CRCNA - Bradenton, Florida
(A conservative member in a conservative congregation)

"Turning away to false Theology is equal to turning away to false gods" — Francis Schaeffer (Death in the City)

Hmmm... I'll have to put that on the list of things this city boy has to try.

No, you just have to time it right so they're still warm when you eat your meal. The skin get's crispy, and you just cut them open like a potato that you've baked. That way you can cook your meat and have a side dish while you're talking to your friends around a fire and don't have to go to the kitchen.

You can do the same thing with regular potatoes. They are tasty as well. Not nearly as tasty as sweet potatoes, but much better than when they are roasted in the oven.

Oh, just make sure that if you are doing this with regular potatoes to poke a small slit in them with a knife or they may very well explode. It isn't something you want to experience.

What we, in the States, call candied yams/sweet potatoes are the same thing: sweet potatoes.
In Africa, there are other things, called yams.
So here, when one says yams and another says sweet potatoes, the answer would be, yes, they are the same thing.

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Shalom,
jessi
PCA
Steelers fan exiled to Virginia


“Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God.”
Martin Luther

I, too, heard the words yams and sweet potatoes used interchangeably.

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J Baldwin
Keowee Presbyterian Church, PCA
Pickens, SC
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27

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It's pretty much only in the South of the US that they are used interchangeably, but you're right, they are commonly referred to there in that way.

In PNG they grew yams as well as sweet potato, and they taste like slugs. I've never eaten slugs, but the color and consistency and I imagine the taste are similar.

Yams are from the Dioscorea family, and many types are used for food and medicine, but they often have to be prepared carefully to keep from poisoning the eater.

I grow a couple species as ornamentals, since many have a "caudex" a stem which imitates a rock or something while it's dormant to protect it from herbivores, and they look really cool.

So there are actually several plants that are called yams, and unlike sweet potatoes you've often got to use botanical names to keep from confusing them.

In any case, I loved baked sweet potates.

I've heard that eating enough wild yams can help you have twins... Sweet potatoes just taste good at Thanksgiving

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Jessica Auner
Wife, Mother,
Garden City, Ga
Ephesus Church
(a Reformed Baptist church)

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Naah, that's an old wife's tale...

You (and your husband) both have to eat fish. And then catch the Egyptian flu.

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Bert Mulder
Elder of the First Protestant Reformed Church of Edmonton
Edmonton Alberta Canada

Seems like I read that the word "Yam" was introduced as part of a marketing campaign and we've been confused here in the US ever since.

Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking says the yam is related to grasses and lilies and can reach 100 lbs in its native ranges in the tropics (both new and old world).

Here in the US, I love our sweet taters in pies, baked, and even fried.

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JWithnell
Member Bethel OPC
Virginia
http://learningyesican.blogspot.com/

Where can we get sweet potatoes (as distinct from yams)? It's been years.

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~Jay~
Husband of ENS, father of J II. | Indian Trail, NC
disabled - cancer
Communicant Member, Precentor | Presbyterian Reformed Church of Charlotte, NC | Presbyterian Reformed Church

zzzzzz ...

I see them sold fresh in the grocery store produce section and also canned. I usually keep a few cans in the pantry.

That's the only way I've ever liked sweet potatoes. Very good.

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Brad
Member- Eagle Heights PCA
Winchester, VA

Pro 16:33 The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.

Isa 8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

"They ain't no myskery to life-ya gits borned, an' tha' all they is to it !"
"I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam !"

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Tom Mitchell
Opp, AL
Member of First Presbyterian Church PCA Florala, AL

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin
Romans 7:24,25
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I have heard that yams aid in fertility in general, but not favoring one sex or the other.

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Kevin, husband of a truly angelic woman, and father to ten.
Zion United Reformed Church of Sheffield
Ontario, Canada