People: Sure. Countries: Why Not. Ingredients Critical to a Recipe: Don’t. Or, On Having More Than One Name, e.g. This Blog Post
I needed yams to make a Teochew dessert for a Thanksgiving party. The night before, the American roommate mentioned that sweet potatoes are sometimes called ‘yams’ too. Somewhere within my American-media infiltrated mind, I was already vaguely aware.
Where I came from, ‘yam’ gives you purple, ‘sweet potato’ orange—simple, straightforward. You won’t find yourself walking back to the supermarket in the hands-quivering cold in order to exchange the remaining bags of root vegetables you have just bought, after you have already started working on a steamer-load of what turned out to be SWEET POTATOES, then return home, repeat the procedure of washing each individual soil-fouled bulb, reprise the fengshui finesse one needs to conquer the boundaries of a minuscule steamer-disguised-as-rice-cooker, re-burn your fingers peeling hot skins off, only to get—once again—sweet potatoes.
Of course, I could blame my own ignorance and inattention the many times orni was being made in front of me, but I’d rather blame this article for not providing any helpful solution, my handphone dictionary for lumping ‘고구마’ with ‘감자’ without mentioning the possibility of ‘참마’, and last but not least (as MCs back home like to say), my Singaporean upbringing for keeping me at the furthest possible distance from food sources.
