Tuesday, December 6, 2011

A potato by any other name....

...is still a potato.... I was excited a few days ago to hear from Jelena, author of Food for Thought, a mouth-watering food blog in English and Serbian, that they're now selling sweet potatoes/yams in local markets! Off I set in hot pursuit...found the potatoes in the photo at a local supermarket. They're called batati and are grown here. They look like sweet potatoes, but....they're not. Even though their form is almost identical and their skin a bit reddish, they're a type of white potato that is sweeter in taste than a regular potato.

But I ate them, and they're good! Thanks anyway, Jelena!

8 comments:

Luis Gomez said...

They are called Batatas in Spanish. They look good.

Lowell said...

Ugly-looking critters, but I guess the proof is in the mashing! I wonder if anyone sells batati over here. Prob'ly not...

Gaelyn said...

Sure look like sweet potatoes.

J e l e n a said...

Ooooh Bibi. I am sory it is not the real thing, but maybe, just maybe, they are not all the same. Maybe some of them are more like sweet potato then others. even here in Serbia, people do not have a clue what is batat and do not use it. That insludes me. I know what it is but I did not used it yet. Still, our rasberries, strawberries, plums and peaches are the best in the world. I will keep looking for the real thing and let you know.

Daryl said...

The other night on the news they were talking about a sweet potato that was reddish outside but white inside yet still 'sweet' .. maybe its related to those .. they are also wonderfully shaped .. everything is a photo op, isnt it? :-)

Tash said...

Fascinating that it can look so similar...on the outside. Can't judge a book...
I have a killer receipe for baked yams from Sunset Magazine (from the 60s) that my husband's family has been using for years - 10 Yams, 1 cup butter, 2 cups brown sugar, 2 tbsp water (I did say it was a killer!) Cover cooked/quartered yams with the heated mixture and bake covered for 1.5 to 2 hours in 350 deg F oven. It's so sweet, it makes the mouth tingle. BUT our cousin made a less sweet variation this Thanksgiving, and my son liked it much better. Go figure!

Anonymous said...

These look like they could be true yams, which are originally from West Africa. The things that are referred to as yams in North America are actually a cultivated form of sweet potato.

That said, they're very, very similar to cook with, and I was buying them regularly at Mercator for several years. However, they haven't had them for several months so the question is: What market are they available at? I shop at Blok 44, but haven't seen them there. Bibi, Jelena, please help. :-)

Pat said...

Thanks, Anonymous. Hope you're reading this; in the future, send me an email under My Profile, since your address doesn't come up if you don't have a Google account.

That said, I found these at MAXI in Senjak, but I think Jelena found them at another MAXI.

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