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Recipes With A Past –
Historic Dishes Featuring Sweet Potatoes

Throughout most times of the year we complain about eating “the same old thing” at dinner, yet from Thanksgiving through New Year’s folks seem to revel in the traditional dishes placed on their family’s celebratory tables. But the North Carolina Sweet Potato farmers want everyone to know that sweet potatoes are so much more than a tired side dish! Sweet Potatoes can jazz up holiday meals in everything from elegant appetizers to divine desserts.

In search of some fresh ideas for sweet potato recipes for the family feasts so abundant this time of year, the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission did something unusual. They consulted the annuls of North Carolina’s culinary history, and found a few sweet potato recipes with a past.

If you travel by car throughout any of the original 13 colonies, most particularly in Virginia and the Carolinas, you will happen upon many a historical marker that bears a reference to General Cornwallis, Britain’s Major General of the Revolutionary War. And boy, he must have loved sweet potatoes. If you are fond of picking up old cookbook collections from churches and Junior Leagues, you may encounter a Cornwallis Yam recipe. The best we’ve ever come across in North Carolina is from the Colonial Inn in Hillsborough, a town that became a frequent stop for Cornwallis and his troops during the War of Independence. Because of the inn’s history, it was spared of ransacking and fire during the Civil War. Filled with crushed pineapple and grated coconut, this old-fashioned sweet potato side dish is comfort food from the 18th century.

Next time you visit your local library, look up the 19th century classic, The Carolina Housewife (1847), by Sara Rutledge and you can read all about the batter puddings and custards that were the dessert rage of the time. Of European culinary descent, custards are a sweetened mixture of milk and eggs that are gently cooked in an oven or stirred on the stovetop and, often enhanced with flavorings such as chocolate, vanilla, fruit and more. In historic cookbooks you will see references to dozens of fruit sauces for custards. A flan is the Spanish name for custard, and in the 21st century they are a hot item on restaurant menus. The North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission has shared an easy recipe for a Sweet Potato Flan that features a pear sauce.

What would we do without crispy crackers to snack on? When you are serving a soup supper to incoming family during the holidays, take the time to make some Sweet Potato Crackers. Adapted from a recipe by the late Bill Neal, these snappy sweet potato morsels will win your crowd over. A food historian as well as a chef, in his book Biscuits, Spoonbread, and Sweet Potato Pie (Alfred A. Knopf, 1990) Neal explained that the sweet potato biscuit tradition in the South was largely influenced by the Caribbean trade. During the Colonial age African cooking became intermingled with that tropical region’s culinary heritage, and because grains tended to spoil quickly in the damp tropical climate, breads were often made with other starchy foods such as cassava, elephant ear, breadfruit and sweet potatoes. Crackers were made from leftover scraps from sweet potato biscuits. Rolled thin, the dough was then seasoned with a pinch of sesame seed, salt and cayenne.

Tzimmes is a Jewish casserole-style dish most often served during Rosh Hashana. Made with different combinations of fruits, meats and vegetables, the key is to bake the ingredients at very low heat so the flavors have a chance to blend. The North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission’s recipe is a side dish featuring those roasted golden beauties with dried plums (prunes). It isn’t often that a recipe is as simple as it is delicious.

Make sure one of these heritage recipes find their way into your holiday menu planning. Their stories will provide a nice conversation tidbit at the family table. And while these delicious roots indeed can be stars of the holiday table, they’re also much too good to save for just once a year. Sweet Potatoes from North Carolina are available all the time, are incredibly versatile, and are just about the healthiest food around.

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