Yams.

[Ianab]

Well I was at the supermarket today getting groceries. I had grabbed some early season "NZ Yams". Rest of the world seem to call them Oca, but anyway, they are small sweet but tangy root vege, related to the oxalis weed. 

Anyway I get to the checkout, and there is new girl on, nice enough and doing her job. But she looks in the paper bag and goes "what are these?" I may have been the first person to buy yams at her checkout, last week they didn't have any, and she wasn't there either. Anyway, I told her it was yam, and she taps "y" on her terminal, and it has a picture of a yam that matches. All good. But she had never seen one in her ~20 odd years on the planet. 

But the made me curious, because a lot of folks talk about "yams". So a bit of research it seems that what the US call "Yams" is actually sweet potato, that we call Kumara. In SE Asia they refer to Taro as a "Yam". Where a true Yam is a whole other species, but also has an edible tuber.

Anyway, it's also kumara harvest season, so I got some of them too, and she did know what those were. 

[customsawyer]

One of the ones that always cracks me up is flour and water. It's a couple of basic ingredients but depending on what part of the world you live in they sure make some different products from it. 

[Magicman]

flour and water

Add shortening, etc. and you have the makings for dumplings.  PatD made a pot-o-chinken-n-dumplings Wednesday. 

Yup, we call um yams but if baked whole, they are sweet taters.  We have um 'bout every week and they make poots.

[Jeff]

I though a yam for years as a child was a cartoon sailor that ate spinach.

I need to make a sweet potato casserole from Miss Pats recipe when I get feeling better.