I yam not a sweet potato
Sweet potatoes grow well in Arkansas, and they are not yams. So when Popeye said, “I yam what I yam,” it’s the same as Gertrude Stein’s “A rose is a rose is a rose,” and Eintsein’s, “mc2= mc2.” But Popeye, a poet, was also touching on the deeper linguistic irony connecting the words “am” and “yam” in the context of, “I yam not a sweet potato…” which grows well in eastern Arkansas.
Yams grow well in Africa. They are monocotyledons. Sweet potatoes are dicotyledons in the morning glory family. Yams, which are related to lilies, can grow to five feet long, and sweet potatoes usually max out at less than 12 inches. Both prefer warm evenings, walks on the beach and regular watering, but you can’t buy yams at the Berryville Walmart.
The economies from Nigeria west to Sierra Leone depend on yams. Nigerian farmers grow more than 35 tons of yams annually, more than any other country with Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire right behind. It’s a tradition in Nigeria for the bridegroom to give a minimum of 200 large yams to his future in-laws before the wedding. (Where in your house would you store 200 large yams?)
In the United States, we grow sweet potatoes. North Carolina, which named the sweet potato its state vegetable, invests 95,000 acres for sweet potato production, more than any other state. Louisiana is second in production because some areas are warm enough to grow sweet potatoes year-round. Arkansas ranks sixth, with Cross County growing the most. Acreage for growing sweet potatoes in Arkansas has increased annually for the past decade to more than 5000 acres.
A probable source of confusion regarding the names for the two vegetables was the fact forcibly displaced Africans in the south called sweet potatoes yams. It reminded them of something back home. Farmers informally adopted the word, and it lingers still.
Sweet potatoes are a labor-intensive crop for large operations. The plants grow from slips which are little green vines that emerge from the mother sweet potato. A gardener carefully removes a slip from the mother and plants the shoot into the ground to start a new plant. A single sweet potato might offer a dozen or more slips. Think about planting slips 9-12 inches apart over one acre.
A gardener in Carroll County can start sweet potato slips by sticking a sweet potato into a jar filled with water. Use toothpicks to suspend the top end above the edge of the jar. Swish the water around occasionally or refresh it, and soon enough the suspended tuber sprouts slips.
You plant them in May and harvest your tubers in September or October. Prepare the soil with rich hummus on the slightly acid side (add pine needles if you can get them), plus sweet potatoes can abide the shady corner of the garden. You might get four sweet potatoes from one slip.
You can get next year’s slips from this year’s crop, but experienced growers recommend getting fresh stock after four years to prevent diseases or decline in productivity.
Though history tells us Columbus introduced sweet potatoes to Europe, there is genetic evidence that Popeye’s Polynesian forebears made landfall in South America and took home sweet potatoes at least 400 years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. New Zealanders and other Pacific islanders were growing them before the arrival of Europeans, who discovered a Polynesian word for sweet potatoes was remarkably similar to the Quechua word used in the Andes.
Yes, Popeye and I are part Polynesian, but I eat sweet potatoes because they are tasty and full of protein, alphabets and fiber but low on calories. It’s a personal choice. I’m like Tom Robbins, “I sweet potato what I sweet potato.”