I would like to know what the sweet potato did to deserve this level of revulsion and contempt.
It is called a sweet potato. The name practically introduces it as a kind neighbor. It has never demanded anything of you beyond a little heat and perhaps some butter.
Yet every time sweet potatoes come up, someone announces that they hate them. Not a particular recipe. Not the way their aunt made them one Thanksgiving. The entire sweet potato.
I’m going to need an explanation.
The sweet potato has range. Bake it and give it butter. Roast it. Mash it. Make fries. Put it in a pie. Invite it to Thanksgiving and let it arrive under a blanket of marshmallows. I may have preferences about what I’m in the mood for, but I have yet to meet a preparation that made me turn against the sweet potato itself.
And have you introduced cinnamon to it?
Come on.
A warm sweet potato and cinnamon understand each other immediately. You barely have to arrange the meeting. If you’ve been avoiding sweet potatoes all these years, I’d start there before making any final declarations.
I know taste is personal. You are allowed to dislike a food, even one I consider charming and remarkably cooperative. I’m not going to chase you down the street with a forkful of casserole.
I am going to ask what happened.
Was it the texture? The sweetness? Were you served one that had been sitting around too long, and the sweet potato took the blame? Did somebody tell you that you had to like them, causing you to resist on principle? I respect resisting on principle. I simply think we should make sure the principle has identified the correct party.
Because the sweet potato keeps offering alternatives. Don’t want dessert-level sweetness at dinner? Roast it. Don’t want it mashed? Make fries. Don’t want fries? Bake one and bring out the cinnamon.
If none of those appeals to you, fine. More for me. But please stop speaking of this pleasant orange food as though it personally wronged you.
The sweet potato has shown up in good faith. I think we owe it at least a fair hearing.
And perhaps a little cinnamon.
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