Issue #34 Dueling Recipes And Shop Shop Shopping

Apr 12, 2024

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and, for many folks, the menu includes something called “candied sweet potatoes” or, to be technically more correct, “candied yams”.

How they are prepared can be a topic that generates some heated discussion.

My grandmother made them with copious amounts of brown sugar.

Your grandmother might have made them with marshmallows.

I have to admit, the first time I encountered the ones with the marshmallows I was stunned. I thought it was a one-off created by my hostess. Some sort of quirky thing she was trying.

By the time I met the marshmallow encrusted yams at three or four other Thanksgiving meals I suspected a new trend. Possibly tied to a recent magazine article.

I had not yet figured out how long-standing and widespread the recipe was. I was sort of arrogantly assuming that my grandmother was “right” and all these other people were “wrong”.

In the ensuing years I learned to be polite and just not discuss it.

Then I wrote the poem above and it got picked up and analyzed by someone else’s blog and I thought maybe I should dig into this a little bit and find out where the recipes actually came from and which was older, or more traditional or whatever.

Turns out I wasn’t too far off with the magazine trend theory. The marshmallow recipe was created by someone paid by (gasp) a marshmallow manufacturer.

I was waaaaaay off though in thinking it was a recent thing.

The first documented recipe was published in 1917 as part of a booklet encouraging home cooks to use marshmallows as much as possible in their everyday food preparation. (Now I’m dying to know what other recipes they tried to wedge marshmallows into - if you know, or have any ideas, message me!)

Candied yams made with brown sugar, or even molasses, go back much further. All the way to the 1600’s.

So, if we are keeping score on the “tradition” front, even though the marshmallow thing is over 100 years old, the brown sugar wins.

I still wondered why I had never heard of marshmallow covered sweet potatoes while growing up, and it turns out it has largely to do with the southern roots of my maternal grandmother. She was born in Oklahoma and raised in Mississippi where the use of brown sugar was prevalent. (The southern part of that family apparently liked brown sugar so very much that I remember my grandmother also making a “brown sugar pie”. Five year old me thought it was the best thing ever invented. Thirty year old me discovered that it was a diabetic coma in the making.)

All of this became a moot point when my children categorically refused to eat ANY candied yams regardless of sweetening agent.

These days we just make savory sweet potato soup instead.

It’s just as well.

Food Pranks

The whole family is a bunch of comedians.

Which is why this sort of thing happens…

Keep The Messages Coming!

A big “thank you” to all of you who have messaged me commented or hit “like” after reading my poems and commentary!

I appreciate the feedback and knowing how often I have struck a chord with your lives.

Anne The Passive Aggressive Poet

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