This postI’ve grown up thinking sweet potatoes and yams were the same thing. I was wrong:
The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), commonly called a yam in parts of the United States (especially in the southern and western portions of the country; this terminology causes some confusion with true yams) is a crop plant whose large, starchy, sweet tasting tuberous roots are an important root vegetable…. The sweet potato is only distantly related to the potato (Solanum tuberosum). It is even more distantly related to the true yam (Dioscorea species) which is native to Africa and Asia.
Life-changing, folks.
:P
