![]() ![]() I have always liked my sweet potatoes like that–sweet and savory with a touch of heat–ever since. The sweet potato would then be cut open lengthwise, a dollop of freshly churned butter added, maybe a light sprinkle of coarse sugar, always a pinch of salt, and, for those of us old enough to stand it, a dusting of hot red chili powder. ![]() Most of the time, we succeeded in getting them onto a platter that one of the adults would seem to produce out of thin air just at the moment we thought that we could no longer bear the heat. We would poke them out with sticks and juggle them in our hands, doing a dance that telegraphed to everyone watching that no matter how hot the potato was, we weren’t going to allow that nugget of sweet goodness to drop to the ground and explode. I vividly remember grandma handing each of us kids a sweet potato and showing us how to roast them in the embers of that stove. Twenty or 30 of us would descend upon her house to celebrate Diwali and a makeshift wood-burning stove would be set up to heat big drums of water to make everyone our chai. My first memories of eating sweet potatoes take me back to my grandmother’s backyard in Gujarat, India. The fine farmers there grow some terrific tubers, and while I might be a little biased in favor of these local folks, the truth is my sweet potato love goes back as long as I can remember. My restaurant, Snackbar, is located in Oxford, Mississippi–not far from the “sweet potato capital of the world” in Vardaman County. ![]()
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