I second that Mary. I grew up eating Momma's sweet potatoe pies. They have a much more full bodied flavor, making the pumpkin seem kinda bland in comparrison to me. It is easy to adjust the seasonings and spices to alter the taste, some even put preparred pumpkin pie spices in them, but we do not. Just butter, cinnamon, eggs, brown sugar, syrup, vanilla, small amount of salt to taste, some like a little nutmeg, unless I have forgotten something. ":^) My taste buds would remind me if I were mixing now. Like most everyone I guess, my wife and I get a taste, or hankering for some particular thing and have it pretty frequently until something else takes it's place and move on to that. We have fixed sweet potatoe pies pretty regularly since last summer. I like them still warm with a dollop of cool whip, or cold. They are kinda hard to beat for an inexpensive dessert that is pretty easy to fix. I also like sweet potatoes, candied, fried, baked, etc., and we always make a sweet potatoe casserole at thanksgiving and Christmas, which is basically just like the pie filling with marsmallows toasted on top. Goes good with the turkey and dressing. I snapped this pic last fall, it was right out of the oven and had not firmed up fully. Bill P.

zackey, Each year I plant 2 rows of sweet potatoes in my garden. Each row is 184 ft. long. I plant 220 plants in each row, plants are 10 in. apart. I prepare a bed about 12 to 15 in. high, and flatten the top to about 6 in. wide for a soaker hose and then set out my plants. I keep the vines trimmed about 2 ft. from the roots. This makes the growth go to the potatoes instead of the vines. I plant Covington, Hernandez, Carolina Ruby and White Hayman potatoes.

beanthere- you could be right...it could be regional. The first time I had ever tasted sweet potato pie was courtesy of a woman from the south. One of the enterprising guys at work had a mother who had a little side business making pies. He brought some into work for everyone to taste & as a way to drum up more business. The sweet potato was divine & I promptly decided that I had to make some of my own. Enter this recipe, courtesy of the El Paso Chile Company's Texas Border Cookbook: Sweet Potato Spice Rack Pie 2 medium sweet potatoes (about 1 1/4 lbs total) 3 eggs 1 c packed light brown sugar 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp nutmeg 1/2 tsp ground ginger 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 tsp ground cloves 1/4 tsp ground allspice 1/4 tsp ground cardamom 1/4 tsp ground corriander 3/4 c whipping cream 1/2 c half & half 3 tbs bourbon 1 tbs vanilla extract 1 unbaked 9" pie shell, chilled (I use Oronoque- oh the shame of it!) preheat the oven to 400 F. Pierece each sweet potato twice with the tines of a fork & bake unti; very tender, about 1 hour. Cool them to room temp, peel them & mash enough sweet potato to equal 1 3/4 cups. Position a rack in the middle of the oven & set a baking sheet on the rack. Preheat the oven to 350 F. In a food processor combine the sweet potato, eggs and all of the spices and process briefly. Add the whipping cream, half & half, bourbon & vanilla & process again, pausing to scrape the work bowl, until smooth. Pour the filling into the pie shell, set it on the heated baking sheet and bake 45-50 minutes or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool completely on a rack before cutting. You can serve each slice topped with a dollop of lightly sweetened, bourbon spiked cream but it's delicious unadorned. Nina

If you're a buyer, and are sweet and friendly, they'll probably cut them all for you, but if two or three are white, you can probably assume the whole lot is. Your age theory is possible, but I did a search and can't find any mention of it. One thing to remember is that the purple ones are yams, not sweet potatoes, whereas almost everywhere in the U.S. the tubers labelled "yams" really are a variety of sweet potato and only called "yams" because people brought their old name to this new-to-them vegetable. Real yams are more in the white/yellow/pink/purple family than the orange/red family, and aren't as soft and sweet as sweet potatoes. The purple ones, at least, are chock full of antioxidants which has led to their growing popularity.