If you’ve ever had the pleasure or misfortune of getting stuck in a conversation with me, you might notice one thing. I most always say, “Well, I think.” or “Well, I’m pretty sure.” I don’t tend to talk in certainties. It may be because I am more concerned about being wrong rather than being right. My belief system is a perfect example of my ambivalence.  “Is there a God? Maybe?” I wouldn’t want to completely discount it. Either way, the day I finally find out the answer to that question no one will be able to say that I was entirely wrong. I just hedged my bets. And then in one scenario I will definitely be sent to purgatory.

This maybe surprising, but working in the food industry has pushed me to double down on my “Well, I think” and “Well, I’m pretty sure.” It is an intentional pushback against all of those fellow co-workers and customers who over the years have talked in absolutes. GMOS. Bad. Vaccines. More Bad. Bone Broth heals everything. Reishi Mushrooms cures cancer. Absolutes that always seem to be based on anecdotes and not scientific consensus. Perhaps, for those of us who are not doctors or scientists should be a bit more humble in our certainties when it comes to areas where we have no expertise. For sure, I am not completely immune to the random moment of righteousness. A couple of years ago, after I moved back to my home province of Ontario and started a new job I found myself on the wrong side of a pesky, yet not an inconsequential debate. What is a sweet potato? And, what is a yam? For my new co-worker, the orange skin and orange flesh elongated root was a sweet potato. For me, it was a yam. I explained that I was a produce queen. I had spent the last three years knee deep in organic produce splendor. Sunchokes, kiwi berries, burdock, broccoli leaves, passion fruit, persimmon, you name it I’ve tried it. With a few caveats.  I gently explained, perhaps, with a bit of a condescending tone that I had already had the yam / sweet potato conversation with a produce distributor, and that they explained that the yam was the orange skin and orange flesh root, and that the sweet potato was the purple skin white flesh root. So, yeah, my apologies, but I’m right. Well, I was wrong. Which brings us to this week’s episode: The Unfortunate Case of the Sweet Potato and Yam Debacle.

You know once in awhile I wonder if the time and money I put into my English Degree was worth it, and then more often than you would think as I do research on my next podcast a book will come up, and I say to myself, “Wait a minute. I’ve read that book. I have that book. That book is upstairs.” This was one of those times. The book is called, “Things Fall Apart” and the author is Chinua Achebe. Now, let’s be clear I remember precious little about this book other than the fact that I liked it. That goes with pretty much every single novel I read throughout my university career. Robertson Davies was my favourite author. Why? I don’t remember. In “Things Fall Apart,” which is set in Nigeria, there is a chapter that describes “The Feast of the New Yam.” In the book, the festival is held every year prior to the harvest, to honour the earth goddess and the ancestral spirits of the clan. The festival marked the season of plenty and a new year. Old, shriveled up, fibrous yams would be disposed of, for the new year must begin with new, fresh yams. Needless to say, spiritually and culturally, the yam is interwoven into West African culture. A variant of the word “yam” in some tribes actually means “to eat.” So, yeah, if it’s synonymous with the act of eating then it must be important.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHS4CpLMddY

The yam is a tuber, similar to a potato. And, a tuber, is basically a storage vessel that grows from the root system to then create another plant. A sweet potato is a root. They are not related.  The yam originated in West Africa and Asia,