sweet potatoes/yams : is there a difference

[hedges]

I always thought sweet potatoes and yams were the same thing, and that sweet potatoes/yams were kind of orange/brown in color. Well, then a chef one day told me sweet potatoes were actually white in color and yams were orange/brown. Does anyone know anything about this.

[PapaBear]

There may be a difference, but I've never heard of a white sweet potato. Maybe he pours sugar on his russets.

[sailor]

of course there's a difference. i've never heard of a sweet potato bag.

[brettmojo]

There are white sweet potatoes. But they're just a type of sweet potato, which is the same as a yam in any determinable way.

[sailor]

they're actually unrelated (http://homecooking.about.com/od/howtocookvegetables/a/sweetpotatodiff.htm).

[sr71blackbird]

I found this that has better pictures, I am a visual guy. It seems there are quite different. I think what happened though is that there were used interchangebly for a while, and it stuck in peoples minds.


link
(http://www.thenibble.com/REVIEWS/MAIN/vegetables/sweet-potatoes-yams.asp)

[lleeder]

of course there's a difference. i've never heard of a sweet potato bag.

:lol:

[hedges]

Authentic yams are white fleshed, starchy tubers that come from Afica.
Quote:
Those encountering the long, rough, brown tubers called yams in international markets–or ordering yams in Caribbean restaurants and getting something white and starchy—have every right to be thoroughly confused. We are living in a multi-yam society. Perhaps it‘s time to go back to the terms sweet potato (domestic) and yam (African); or at least, domestic yam (sweet potato) and African yam (true yam).