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Asian Vegetables

wanted: asian sweet potatoes, especially purple fleshed

11 years ago

I would like white fleshed, yellow fleshed or especially purple fleshed varieties. I'm not talking about the skin, but about the flesh of the tuber.

I haven't had much luck sprouting from storebought tubers recently, particularly the purple ones. Trying again now, but I'm not particularly optimistic.

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Comments (8)

jctsai8b
11 years ago
storebought sweet potato may be treated to prevent sprouting. You may go to flea marke or famers market to get it.
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farmerdill
11 years ago
All purple http://www.southernexposure.com/sweet-potatoes-c-229.html
Alabama purple, Okinawan purple http://www.duckcreekfarms.com/pdfs/SweetPotatoCatalog2012.pdf
Sandhill has Dingus Purple Flesh, Korean Purple(white flesh),Myanmar Purple ( white flesh with purple streaks), Purple Delight, Tainung 65 ( purple skin, cream flesh). http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/catalog/sweet_potatoes.html
Red Japanese (white flesh)http://www.tatorman.com/p9.htm
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farmerdilla, Thanks for your comments. However the tuber I have is neither the species/variety of yam nor the sweet potato that you describe. Dioscorea alata (at least some varieties) has intensely colored purple flesh like that I see. Dioscorea batatas does not. I believe, but I'm not 100% sure, that Dioscorea alata is the only one of the genus that has flesh of this color. Certainly it is by far the most common species of the color. It is also known as Ube. As far as availability, the market I found it in was not technically "Asian" but it is in a neighborhood that is more than 50% Asian, mostly Chinese. It has lots of fruits and vegetables that I'm not familiar with. And the name "Chines Yam" is often applied to D. alata, although not as frequently as D. batatas is. However D. batatas would not have purple flesh. If it were a sweet potato, from what I understand it's most likely Okinawan puple sweet potato (I don't know of any other purple varieties, and nothing I've looked into suggests that a different variety that is commonly sold has purple flesh). As far as size: yes yams CAN grow big. Is D. alata generally sold as tubers greater than 4 lbs? No. From "The South American Table" by Maria Baez Kijac: "The yam (Dioscorea alata), called name in South America, is native to Africa but now grows in many tropical regions of the world. Yams are usually the size of large potatoes, but some may weigh up to 100 pounds." Just to complicate things, I'm positive that the tuber has been abraded so that it looks paler in color--there are darker, scaly regions where it looks like the abrasion process didn't (and often couldn't) reach. Lightly colored regions only exist where it looks like regions of the skin have been scratched off. Imagine dragging you fingernails multiple times across the surface--the parallel markings would look like this. I have a regular yam right next to it--it has paler, slightly yellow skin that is smooth. It's not the Okinawan variety--it has white, slightly yellow flesh. So what it boils down to is whether the purple colored tuber is the purple colored yam (D. alata or Ube) or the purple colored sweet potato (Okinawan purple sweet potato). I've spent quite a while looking and haven't found the answer. And again, this is in precisely a neighborhood where you might expect to find real Dioscorea, not just mislabeled sweet potatoes.
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yukkuri_kame
Original Author
11 years ago
Well, I sprouted the purple skinned, white fleshed variety, but would still love to get my hands on some of the purple fleshed variety, but I'd rather trade than order from a nursery. I've got plenty of planting projects to keep me busy in the meantime.
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trianglejohn
11 years ago
The imports from Hawaii are usually just low grade x-rayed before transport. This will keep some of them from sprouting but not all of them. I got one to sprout years ago, and I bought a plant once from a specialty Asian store. To be honest, the all purple forms developed in the US Southeast are much easier to grow and have way more flavor. I've been told that the Okinawa form does best in the tropics and suffers anywhere else. In my zone 7b garden I had to baby it all summer and it only gave me 5 tubers which had no flavor at all.
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yukkuri_kame
Original Author
11 years ago
thanks triangle John.

BTW - I just flew through Hawaii on my way back from Japan and was surprised how heavy they are on the agricultural inspections. Had to go through twice - once upon arriving and once again before departing.

With the asian psyllid menace, I suppose it is quite understandable.
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trianglejohn
11 years ago
I grew up in Japan and dream of someday going back. One of these days I'll scrape up the money and get over my fear of flying (I fly often, but try to keep the flights short since I am terrified of heights). My biggest problem is finding a tour that wants to tour smaller villages and farming/gardening hot spots. Everyone wants to do the normal touristy stuff. Well that and the fact that it would take 3 months to see all the stuff that I want to see and that would be quite expensive. Gotta win the lottery!
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yukkuri_kame
Original Author
11 years ago
If you want to experience rural Japan, you can go WWOOFing, and not worry about cost. That's a real immersion.

Anything particular you want to see? I know a few folks scattered here and there around rural japan. At least one of them takes foreign wwoofers.

Beautiful countryside. People talk about population density in Japan, but in reality most of the country is forested mountains and little rice-farming or fishing villages.

Someday we may find a place in the country of west Japan - east Japan the radiation is too high for my tastes.
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trianglejohn
11 years ago
There are a few places that I want to go back and see just to remember when I was there as a child/teenager: Kamakura, Mt. Fuji, the Ginza/Tokyo downtown, Tachikawa (we lived in Ome outside the Tachikawa Air Force Base which is now a park). But then I want to go all the way up to Sapporo and down to Kyushu & Shikoku and over to the western shore, maybe Sado Island. I doubt I would ever get to go back so I would want to do it all.

I have friends that WWOOF in Italy during their off season (they are organic farmers). I'm not sure what I would do with my large garden and pets in order to go away for such a long time but someday I will go back to Japan.
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