Tracking the white yam

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up what I thought were Irish potatoes from John and Betty Chenier, among my favorite Red Stick Farmers Market vendors. My intention was to make mashed potatoes, but when I started peeling them, these spuds seemed different—drier and bumpier. I figured they were an heirloom variety, so I pressed on. After mashing, they exhibited more differences, including being slightly fibrous. But it was the flavor that really stood out: sweet, nutty and slightly unctuous. Mixed with only buttermilk, salt and pepper, the mysterious spuds resulted in some of the best mashed potatoes from my kitchen on record.

Turns out, they were white sweet potatoes, specifically the O’Henry variety. I returned last week to talk this over with Betty Chenier, who looked at me askance when I told her how much I liked them, and how I thought I had brought home regular ol’ white potatoes. “White yams is more like it,” she said, adding that this year’s crop had produced some pretty good-sized specimens. On the ground near her truck sat a small crate she had yet to display. “Not enough room on the table,” she said. It was overflowing with Cheniers’ other produce. I rooted through the crate and bought more.

Apparently, the crop is grown commercially by some Louisiana farmers mostly for shipping to niche groceries in the Northeast US, where it appeals to international shoppers, says Tara Smith, Ph.D., a researcher at the LSU AgCenter’s Chase, Louisiana Sweet Potato Research Station. The plant is related to the Beauregard, a traditional orange-fleshed sweet potato, and was deliberately cultivated in the late eighties or early nineties. I also tried roasting the O’Henry, but it was just OK, a consequence of the drier flesh. However, the potato is worth tracking, because a mashed O’Henry is marvelous indeed.