Sunday 15 February 2015

Yams (2)

Our portion of yams was incorporated into today's lunch.

I had bought a section of root, maybe three inches in diameter and three inches long. The outside of the root was brown with a rough texture. The smooth cut faces, initially a pale yellow, were somewhat stained after the day or so since they were cut at the stall.

The lumps as prepared for cooking were again a pale yellow when first cut, oozing a sticky clear liquid and staining quite quickly. Maybe they don't like steel knives. About half of them were added to the beef stew at some point through its cooking and cooked there, resulting in the yellow lumps front centre of the illustration. The remaining half were boiled in water resulting in the rather slimy looking green lumps front right.

The lumps boiled in water had very little taste but had a lot of texture, a bit like soft hot water pastry or a paste filling for something like an almond tart. When cut they looked rather like a mutant truffle chocolate, the inside was right, granular and a very pale yellow, but the outside skin, maybe a millimetre thick, was yellow rather than brown. Pleasant enough, different from our potato but serving much the same function. I think they could grow on one.

The lumps cooked in the stew were stew flavoured and otherwise were a toned down version of the others.

PS: note the 'Beryl' Woodsware plate, as used by institutions until quite recently and as seen in all the best costume dramas, for example, Poirot.

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