Yam (vegetable) - Other Uses of The Term yam

Other Uses of The Term yam

Several other unrelated root vegetables are sometimes referred to as "yams", including:

• In the United States, sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), especially those with orange flesh, are often referred to as "yams." In the United States, firm varieties of sweet potatoes were produced before soft varieties. When soft varieties were first grown commercially, there was a need to differentiate between the two. African slaves had already been calling the soft sweet potatoes "yams" because they resembled the yams in Africa. Thus, soft sweet potatoes were referred to as yams to distinguish them from the firm varieties. While sweet potatoes labeled as "yams" are widely available in supermarkets throughout the United States, markets that serve Asian or Caribbean communities often carry true yams. Today the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires sweet potatoes labeled with the term "yam" to be accompanied by the term "sweet potato."
• Just like commercial yams in the United States, Okinawan purple "yam" is actually a sweet potato.
• In New Zealand "yam" refers to the oca (Oxalis tuberosa),
• The corm of the konjac is often colloquially referred to as a yam, although it is unrelated.
• In Malaysia and Singapore, "yam" is used to refer to taro.