Ok I eat sweet potatoes peeled, chopped and roasted with fish or meat and rice. I consider sweet potatoes to be a savoury food. However I understand that it is popular in America to eat them, boiled and mashed with melted marshmallows on top. Please explain this to me. Marshmallows are sweet but sweet potato to me is savoury! Do you eat them along side roast turkey or as a dessert? How can you mix a vegetable and sweets?
2007-06-11 01:20:41 · 16 answers · asked by Anonymous in Food & Drink ➔ Other - Food & Drink
I have no idea where the whole marshmallow thing came from. Personally I think they make the sweet potatoes a little too sweet. I prefer them boiled & mashed or baked with some butter on them. yummies!
2007-06-11 01:31:08 · answer #1 · answered by auntcookie84 6 · 2⤊ 1⤋
It's called yams and is a popular side dish during thanksgiving. The marshmallows are on top and melted, and the very top is slightly crunchy, like a crust, but the insides are all gooey.
It's not served as a dessert(i.e. it is served during the main course and goes right on the plate along with the turkey, cranberries, regular mashed potatoes, etc), but is very dessert-ish and sweet--many americans enjoy foods that are sweeter than what is eaten in other cultures.
Most people don't serve it/eat it other times of the year, and would have sweet potatoes served the way you're probably used to them at times other than thanksgiving.
2007-06-11 08:30:58 · answer #2 · answered by Adam M 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Mostly baked sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top is usually used as a desert in my family. Usually on Thanksgiving Day. When we eat sweet potatoes the rest of the time we have them peeled or chopped up; either alone or mixed with chopped apples(my personal favorite).
2007-06-11 08:30:07 · answer #3 · answered by JP 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
That's not the only way they are made! They can be both, because sometime you can make a casserole with the marshmallows on top, and bake them to serve with turkey at Thanksgiving, other times you can fry them like french fry chips, you can use them easily to make sweet desserts like Sweet Potato Pie or sweet potato donuts. Other times they are served with just roasted flavors and butter. ..They are pretty versitile, and even once you bake them with the marshmallows it's not really an overwhelming sweetness, it's a nice mix.
2007-06-11 08:35:12 · answer #4 · answered by ShouldBeWorking 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's not quite that black and white. They're used for a lot of things from side dishes to pies to chips. Most everyone has them as a side dish to turkey on Thanksgiving. A lot of people put the marshmallows on them then (blaaah!) We've always glazed them with margarine and brown sugar for Thanksgiving. Other times I'll mash them or slice and grill them. They're very versatile. Why pigeonholed them as this or that? What would be wrong in mixing sweet and savory anyway? Contrast is great-- like sweet and sour dishes.
Interesting side note-- many, if not most American call sweet potatoes yams-- though yams are really a South American root vegetable virtually no one here has ever even seen.
Hey up there! Who says they aren't nutritious? They're PACKED with vitamin C and vitamin A. What do you think the orange color is?
2007-06-11 08:32:08 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
That is not the only way we eat them, but it is true some people do. It is most often eaten that way at Christmas or Thanksgiving, often with turkey or ham.
How do you mix a vegetable with sweets? Well, the truth is that a sweet potato, nutritionally, is hardly a vegetable at all. So what difference does it make?
That said, I lived in Britain for a year, and I've seen some weird food eaten. It blew me away to see someone eat a meat pie with beans poured over it, or pasta with ketchup and ham. So we're not the only ones that eat weird food.
2007-06-11 08:31:03 · answer #6 · answered by Mr. Taco 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
They are usually served with marshmallows only on Thanksgiving. They are part of the main meal. The proper way to eat them is as follows- scoop the melted marshmallows off the potatoes and eat. Discard the potatoes.
cheers
2007-06-11 08:29:58 · answer #7 · answered by Bayou Brigadier 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Sweet Potatoes can go either way. Since they are super good for you and grow very plentifully, why not go both ways, Sweet and savory.
We yanks also make sweet potatoe pie, which is sort of like pumpkin pie, the marshmellow dish is a little over the top if you ask me.
2007-06-11 10:12:29 · answer #8 · answered by gwen h 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
well you seem to not understand 2 things.
1. why we mash them, thats like saying you shouldnt make french fries out of regular potatoes.
its just a diffrent way to prepare them.
2. the marshmellows, i have never had them this way but my girlfriend loves them with a little brown sugar, and hunny, or just hunny and butter. i dont really have a reason for this topping its just how we eat it.
the only way i eat sweet potatoes is in a fry form either baked or fried with ranch dressing! ...now im hungry
2007-06-11 08:49:05 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Sweet potatoes here are for sweets....or eaten baked which is still sweet, but in pies with sugar cinnamon eggs milk vanilla, in that bake you speak of......even fried sweet potatoes are sweet, but I can see it can go with meats....fish i'm not sure....with rice I have to investigate that one...we also glaze them with brown sugar cinnamon with corn syrup even LOL LOL...., oh I forgot sweet potato pudding....
2007-06-11 08:52:41 · answer #10 · answered by rob lou 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋