Sweet potato

“Food first: the crops that crossed with the ancestors (yam, okra, black-eyed peas, sorghum, sesame, Bambara groundnut), moringa leaf as food, baobab pulp with its vitamin C.”

“Carney and Rosomoff, "In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa's Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World": plants travelled on slave ships as provisions, medicines, cordage and bedding. Leftover provisions went ashore with the enslaved and became planting stock in provision grounds and house yards. Named crops include black-eyed peas, yams, okra, hibiscus, tamarind, Guinea millet, watermelon, sorghum, oil palm, Bambara groundnut, sesame, guinea squash, jute mallow, rice and coffee.”

“Beni-imo (purple sweet potato). Sweet potato reached Okinawa from Fujian around 1605 and was well over half of calories until the mid-1900s. The everyday staple was yellow or white-fleshed, not mainly beni-imo (unverified). Dutch kitchen: zoete aardappel, steamed or baked.”

“The plate: mostly sweet potato and vegetables, soy, seaweed, a little grain, very little fish or meat, almost no sugar, dairy, fruit or pickles. About half the calories per gram of a typical American diet, so people felt full on fewer calories (Willcox and Willcox 2014).”

“Shan yao 山药, Chinese yam (Dioscorea opposita). Sweet, neutral. Spleen, lung, kidney. Gently tonifies the qi and yin of all three. A food first: steamed, in congee, in soup. One of the three tonifying herbs of Liu Wei Di Huang Wan.”

“Add-ins the tradition uses: Chinese yam in small cubes, lotus seeds, or adzuki beans (soaked first), cooked along with the rice. Job's tears with barley and adzuki for damp weather.”

“Found in: spinach, almonds, beets, rhubarb, sweet potatoes, Swiss chard”