Sweet Potatoes A Plenty this Year

It’s been a rough harvest season this year, with many crops damaged beyond salvage by heavy rains since late September.  While the area’s sweet potato crop saw its fair share, Sue Langdon with the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission says there’s plenty for everyone:

“North Carolina produces more sweet potatoes of anybody else in the nation.  We grow over 50% now, of the national supply.  So, if one field is damaged that doesn’t mean that the entire state has been damaged.  So, you may have some spot shortage, but we’re very well networked here in the state of North Carolina, and there’s going to be plenty of North Carolina sweet potatoes, not only for Thanksgiving, but it’s going to bring you the next Thanksgiving as well.”

And while the term ‘sweet potato’ conjures up the standard orange variety, Langdon says there’s actually several different types to choose from:

“Well, there are actually over 100 varieties, but we really go by color, so there are orange, there are the white-fleshed, and there are some purple out there.  So, it’s your taste, it what you like in texture and I find it actually goes back to childhood a lot.  If you had the white-fleshed varieties a lot growing up, you want that for home and family and what have you at Thanksgiving.  So, all of that is available.”

For the uninitiated, Langdon has these suggestions for shopping for sweet potatoes:

“What I would look for in sweet potatoes are; are they firm, with no sunken or discolored spots on them?  They’ve come from the United States, for sure, and if you’re in North Carolina, you can rest assured they came from North Carolina.  So, I would look for the type of sweet potatoes that I wanted, and I would make sure there were no sunken spots, or things that would affect its taste, and I’d buy those.”

“Sweet Sue”, Sue Langdon with the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission.