Sweet Potatoes: American Nourishment for Thousands of Years

Evidence from a Peruvian cave indicates that sweet potatoes have been eaten by people for at least 10,000 years. When Columbus landed in the Caribbean Islands, he found people eating sweet potatoes and he brought them back to Europe.

By the 16th century, the Spanish had spread sweet potatoes to the Philippines and the Portuguese had spread them to southern Asia and Africa.

Around this time cultivation of sweet potatoes became common in the Southern United States. Enslaved Africans working on plantations noticed the similarities between the sweet potatoes and a food they had in Africa called nyami or anyinam. They began calling sweet potatoes yams. The name yam became common, although the yams in Africa are actually from a different plant.

I have always loved sweet potatoes, so at lunch today I was browsing through the whole foods bakery when I found enticing loaves of sweet potato bread. I must admit that I bought a loaf...I didn't bake it myself. I brought the loaf home and everyone loved it. It is slightly sweet because there is some sugar in it, and it has a wonderful texture as you can see in the picture on the right.

There is a great recipe for sweet potato bread at http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/08/bread-baking-sweet-potato-bread.html. I hope to try baking some soon.

Nutritionally, sweet potatoes have a lot to offer.They are rich in vitamins A and C and manganese, copper, dietary fiber, vitamin B6, potassium and iron. They have anti-inflammatory qualities and contain proteins with significant antioxidant effects.


You can find out more about their health effects at http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=64.

The Dance between Cranberries and Oranges

Cranberries: red morsels of tartness that were most likely introduced to the Pilgrims by the Indians. We have no solid evidence that they were at the first Thanksgiving but they could have been. The Indians had been using cranberries for many years before the Pilgrims arrived.

I had a large bag of cranberries that I needed to use, so I made cranberry nut bread. The flavor of cranberries dancing with notes of orange and walnuts is one of my favorites. This recipe uses all three flavors and is given below.

Cranberry Nut Bread
2 cups of flour
1 cup of sugar
1/1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons shortening
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
1 egg, well beaten
1 1/2 cups chopped cranberries
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan. Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl. Stir in orange juice, shortening, orange peel and egg. Mix until well blended. Stir in cranberries and nuts. Spread evenly in  loaf pan. Bake for 55 minutes or until wooded toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on rack  for 15 minutes. Remove from pan, cool completely. Wrap and store overnight. Makes one loaf.

This is quite easy to make, and people will be coming from all directions when they smell the aroma! I made a double recipe and my results are shown below. One loaf has nuts sprinkled on top.