National Cook a Sweet Potato Day

The day's own origin is delightfully humble: researchers have never identified a founder, and the earliest print reference anyone has found is a 2015 Wisconsin newspaper listing it among the week's ‘unique and bizarre holidays.’ That grassroots mystery suits the sweet potato, a food that never needed marketing.

Its real history is ancient. Sweet potatoes were domesticated in Central or South America at least 5,000 years ago, and archaeological remains found in Peru may date to around 8000 B.C. Spanish explorers carried it to Europe in the 1500s, where it was prized as a delicacy, and it later became a staple across the American South, so beloved in North Carolina that it is the official state vegetable.

One common confusion deserves clearing up: the sweet potato is not a yam. True yams are starchy tubers from an entirely different plant family, while the sweet potato is a sweet root vegetable that comes in skins and flesh ranging from pale white to deep purple. Nutritionally it punches above its weight, rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin B6, fiber, and beta-carotene.

On February 22, the assignment is deliciously simple. Bake one whole and split it open, roast wedges with sea salt, or try the Southern classic of sweet potato pie. However you cook it, you are joining a tradition that predates the pyramids.