What is the difference between a sweet potatoe and a yam?

Answer 1

Sweet potato is 'kamote'. a vine rootcrop with small leaves which are also eaten and highly nutritious; rich in iron. Yam is another rootcrop, with wide leaves and looks very much like the 'gabi', but the leaves are not eaten. It is called by many names in the locality among them; San Fernando, Bonor, Anuk. We used to plant them in our farm when I was a young boy.

Answer 2

It depends on what you mean by "Yam"

The term Yam has become synonymous in the U.S. with certain varieties of sweet potatoes - the dark orange type. True yams (of which there are many varieties) are botanically unrelated to sweet potatoes, and are typically seen in certain regions of Africa and Indonesia.

Here's a fun little clip from the show "Good Eats" that explains the origins of the term and also the difference between a sweet potato "yam" and the real thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leoUyZVK_h8&search=alton+brown

Answer 3

I prefer yams better. I remember learning in culinary school that the modern day yams are actually sweet potatoes and sweet potatoes are really yams. Sweet pototoes are more orange and shaped much like a large baking potato, however yams are darker and more thin and long. Good question, I hope that I did not confuse you.

Answer 4

All I do know is that if you try and order a Yam in the South, they look at you like your just ordered Donkey meat!!
In the north, yams are on the menu, but unless you are at a soul food place sweet potatoes are not!

Answer 5

They're actually 2 different root vegetables. The sweet potato actually has a yellowish flesh while the yam has that wonderful orange flesh that most of us think of as being the sweet potato. Both are excellent and can be used interchangably to the best of my knowledge.

Answer 6

Yams are interior of sight to Asia and Africa and have thick pores and skin and flesh it quite is white, orange or purple. they're generally used as a starch, plenty as we use bread or pasta. in certainty, yams are between the main serious nutrition vegetation in the tropics and subtropical countries. Yams are generally boiled, baked, fried as chips or grated and steamed for breads and brownies. candy potatoes are attainable in 2 popular varieties. One has tan pores and skin and dry yellow flesh; the different, darker-skinned style has candy orange flesh and is often mistakenly called a yam. candy potatoes are what maximum persons in the U. S. eat. an quite yam is from the genus Dioscorea and a candy Potato is from the genus Ipomoea Batatas

Answer 7

sweet potato is cripping vine while yam is climbing vine.sweet potato is vailable in yellow,white,violet and orange colours while yam is just violet and white or combination of the two.here in the Philippines sweet potato is kamoteng baging and the yam is ube.although they may be cooked in same dessert recipe,the difference is the stickiness of the food.sweet potato is loose and tend to be sticky when cooked with sugar while yam is thicker and has the aroma not found in any root crop.

Answer 8

One is more orange and weird shaped. The other is more oval and less orange and has one end that is pointy.

If I remember correctly, the sweet potato is the one that's more orange but I wouldn't swear to that.

I've mostly had the really orange ones. They are really delicious. Kind of a winter squash (pumpkins and the like) type of flavor.

Some people use the names interchangeably but I remember looking it up in a produce book and they are not the same thing.

Answer 9

There are several differences. They belong to different plant familes, have different ammounts of vegetables grown per plant than eachother, and have different apperances (in plant and vegetable). Yams take longer to grow. I think sweet potatoes are sweeter, too (lol).

Answer 10

Nothing except the spelling. They are one and the same.