Sweet potato

“ Among these are—1st, the mendo, or wild sweet potato; 2nd, the tip-sin-ah, or wild prairie turnip; 3rd, the omen-e-chah, or wild bean. The first is found throughout the valleys of the Mississippi and St. Peter's, about the basis of bluffs, in rather moist but soft and rich ground. The plant resembles the sweet potato, and the root is similar in taste and growth. It does not grow so large or long as the cultivated sweet potato, but I should have thought it the same, were it not that the wild potato is not affected by the frost. A woman will dig from a peck to half a bushel a day. ”

“ SWEET-POTATO PIE OR PUDDING.
One pound of hot, boiled sweet potato rubbed through a sieve; one cup of butter; one heaping cup of sugar; half a grated nutmeg; one glass of brandy; a pinch of salt; six eggs.
Add the sugar, spice, and butter to the hot potato. Beat whites and yolks separately, and add, and last the brandy. Line deep plates with nice paste, making a rim of puff paste. Fill with the mixture, and bake till the crust is done,—about half an hour. Wickedly rich, but very delicious. Irish potatoes can be treated in the same way, and are more delicate. ”

“ Sweet Potatoes en Brochette Wash and pare potatoes, and cut in one-third inch slices. Arrange on skewers in groups of three or four, parboil six minutes, and drain. Brush over with melted butter, sprinkle with brown sugar, and bake in a hot oven until well browned.
Sweet Potato Balls To two cups hot riced sweet potatoes add three tablespoons butter, one-half teaspoon salt, few grains pepper, and one beaten egg. Shape in small balls, roll in flour, fry in deep fat, and drain. If potatoes are very dry, it will be necessary to add hot milk to moisten. ”

“ It is small wonder that even in such a climate the crop suffers; the earth becomes impoverished and the vegetables produced are of a most inferior quality. Their principal root crops are the ordinary potato; the sweet potato (Batata edulis) , a plant of the convolvulus family; and the inhame, a kind of yam. The sweet potato is one of their staple articles of food, and the native appears to consume an inordinately large quantity of batatas. The tuberous roots yield three or even four crops annually. ”

“ Soils containing considerable calcium or underlain with limestone are well adapted to the growing of the crop. The sweet potato is exceptional in that a fairly good crop can be grown upon soils that are too poor for the production of the majority of farm crops. Sweet potatoes yield a fair crop on the "worn-out" tobacco and cotton lands of the South, especially when used in a rotation including some leguminous crop for increasing the humus in the soil. Like many other crops, the sweet potato thrives on newly cleared land, but the crop should not be planted continuously in the same place. ”

“ Propagation of Plants.—The more common varieties of the sweet potato have for a great many years been propagated by cuttings, or sets, taken either from the potatoes themselves or from growing vines, and as a result the plants have ceased to flower and produce seed. The greater portion of the commercial crop is grown from sets, or "draws," produced by sprouting medium-sized potatoes in a warm bed of soil.
Where only a small area of sweet potatoes is to be grown for home use, the necessary plants can generally be secured from some one who makes a business of growing them. ”

“ Planting and Cultivation. —There is a very distinct difference between the planting of the sweet potato and that of the potato. The former are rarely planted in the field where the crop is to mature. It is quite a universal custom to plant the sweet potato in beds where the young growth can be forced both by means of artificial heat and by a generous mulch of highly nutritious soil. ”

“ Wo produce about forty bushels of corn to the acre, of the large Yellow Dent variety, and it ripens nicely by the first of September. The potato is perfectly at home hero, growing large, fine, and mealy. I let a neighbor have nine pounds of the early Goodrich variety, last spring, from which he raised 1,575 pounds. Sweet potatoes yield finely, but they are not so sweet as farther south. Turnips, beets, cabbages, tomatoes, peas, beans, onions, are all raised with ease and in great abundance. ”

“ It is easily raised on either high or low land, being planted at the beginning of the wet season. The sweet potato is also known to you. It can be raised the entire year in Africa, and dug from the earth every month, for use. It grows much larger than in this country ”

“ Pass enough hot boiled potatoes through a ricer to make three cups; season with pepper, salt, a big piece of butter and half a cup of cream; beat an egg very light, beat it in the potato; turn into a buttered baking dish; sprinkle bread crumbs on top and bake until browned.
STUFFED SWEET POTATOES Mrs. Louis Geyler
Bake three large sweet potatoes; cut in halves lengthwise; carefully scoop out pulp and press through a ricer. Reserve the shells. Season with one-half teaspoonful of salt; one-fourth teaspoonful paprika; one-half tablespoonful powdered sugar; three tablespoonfuls butter ”

“ The quantity of protein in the potato is quite low compared with that of cereal foods; in round numbers it may be said to be 2.5 percent. The potato contains very little material which is capable of fermentation aside from starch and sugars.
Sugar content: Although the potato is not sweet to the taste in a fresh state, it contains notable quantities of sugar. This sugar is lost whenever the potato is used for starch-making purposes, but is utilized when it is used for the manufacture of industrial alcohol. The percentage of sugar of all kinds in the potato rarely goes above 1 percent. ”

“ When cooked it has a stronger flavor, and rather darker color. If the potato has been frozen, a sweet flavor is developed, and the quality is waxy. Potatoes are sometimes inferior in quality when the season is a poor one, or when some potato disease is prevalent. ”

“ Cut them into a stew-pan; add a tea-cup and a half of bread crumbs, a teaspoonful of black pepper, a tablespoonful of salt, four tablespoonfuls of butter, and also the cooked onion. Set them where they will stew very slowly all the forenoon, the longer the better. Fifteen minutes before serving them, beat up six eggs, and add, and give them a good boil, stirring all the time. (Indiana Receipt.)
Sweet Potatoes.
The best way to cook sweet potatoes is to bake them with their skins on. When boiled, the largest should be put in first, so as to have all cook alike. ”

“ The kind to select depends entirely on the individual taste, for in composition and food value all the varieties are similar. In composition, sweet potatoes resemble white ones, except that a part of their carbohydrate is in the form of sugar, which gives them their characteristic sweet taste, but in food value they are almost twice as great as white potatoes. ”

“ Add to the pulp half a pound of creamed butter, mix well, then add gradually five cups sugar, alternately with five whole eggs. Beat smooth, add the juice of three lemons, a tablespoonful lemon essence, and a scant pint of very rich milk. Use less milk if the potatoes are very soft. Beat smooth and pour into pie pans lined with good crust. Bake brown in a quick oven, but do not over-bake. Lest the proportion of sugar may seem excessive, let it be said here that sweet potatoes require more sugar for sweetening than anything save crabapples or green gooseberries. ”

“ It is desirable that the soil should be comparatively dry at the time of harvesting sweet potatoes, and bright, drying weather is essential to the proper handling of the crop. Sweet potatoes differ from Irish potatoes in that they are not so easily injured by sunlight. However, they should not be exposed for any length of time if the sunshine is very warm. During the handling in the field it should be the purpose to remove all soil and surface moisture from the potatoes. Sweet potatoes should not lie exposed upon the surface of the ground during the night. ”

“ They are as large as a big ox, with very round bodies mounted on very slim legs that have very large knee and ankle joints. They are of the color of a mouse, or a gray pig, and coarse hairs grow thinly over their skin, while, in contrast to the humpback-cows, they have two immense, crescent-shaped horns setting up from their heads, and measuring often a yard from side to side.
Old Father Sweet Potatoes sells ten pint-bottles full for a silver dollar,—that is ten cents a pint,—and in summer he brings us a half-pint in the morning and another half-pint in the afternoon ”

“ Sweet Potatoes bought some cows, hoping to make some money in the milk business. They all had long ropes laced about their horns or threaded through their noses, and he got some little children to hold the ropes and guide the cows in search of food; for there are no grass fields in this part of the country, and all the pastures the cows have are the little green places on the rocky hills and the grassy patches along the brooks ”

“ This is delicious food for the cows, and when they have it then we have good milk indeed, with a thick, white cream upon it.
THE NATIVE HUMPBACK COW.
Sometimes they have cut grass to eat, which has [Pg 8] been brought from steep places on the hills to which the cows cannot go. Very poor boys go out with baskets and knives to gather this grass, and are paid only three or four cents for the work of a day.
Mr. Sweet Potatoes has two kinds of cows. Some of them are the native humpback cows, of very small size, very gentle ”

“ Potatoes are a laborious crop, requiring constant care, manuring, cutting the seed eyes (on which there is much uncertain lore) , hilling up or down according to drainage and rainfall, spraying with Pyrox or dusting with Paris green, and, neither least nor last, bug hunting.
The seed is expensive, but for your own use you may plant from whatever seed, otherwise wasted, may grow on the potato vine, on the tops of the plants. The crop will be small potatoes and all kinds of varieties, which won't sell in the market but which make each dinner a surprise party. ”

“ Moriarty, much wiser, went out and dug potatoes. There is nothing more soothing to racked nerves than digging in the ground, and there is a mild excitement about driving a spade into potato ridges which distracts the mind from painful thoughts and terrifying anticipations. The turning up of the roots of any particular plant may display an amazing wealth of tubers, may expose to the gaze of the delighted gardener some potato of huge size or very unusual shape. ”

“ SIR,—May I be allowed to protest with all the vigour at my command against the revolting suggestion that, with the view of making cakes from potatoes they should be first boiled in their skins. I admit that this is better than that they should be boiled without them, but that is all. The potato is notoriously a sensitive plant. Personally I regard it more in the light of an emblem than a vegetable. That it is not necessary as an article of food can be conclusively proved from the teaching of history, for, as a famous poet happily puts it ”

“ They can be baked in drippings, without meat, and also without being parboiled.
Kentucky potatoes are potatoes pared, sliced, put in layers in a baking dish, moistened with milk, seasoned with salt, pepper, etc., and baked in a quick oven. If they are moistened with broth or other liquid, and the seasoning varied somewhat, each variation will produce a slightly different dish, and each can, without impropriety, be named after one of the different States of the Union.
Boiled Potatoes.—Very few people know how to boil a potato so it will be dry, mealy and fine flavored. ”

“ Since her adventure at the Susan house, Grandma Padgett had taken care to put provisions in the carriage pockets. Then aunt Corinne, assisted by her nephew, got potatoes from the sack, wrapped them in wet wads of paper, and roasted them in the ashes. A potato so roasted may be served up with a scorched and hardened shell, but its heart is perfumed by all the odors of the woods. It tastes better than any other potato, and while the butter melts through it you wonder that people do not fire whole fields and bake the crop in hot earth before digging it, to store for winter. ”

“ I shall never be able to write one-tenth of my fondness for a Cold Boiled Potato.
A Cold Boiled Potato is always an unpremeditated episode which is its chief charm.
It's nice to happen on a book of poetry on a window-sill. It's nice to surprise a square of chocolate in a glove box. It's nice to come upon a little yellow apple in ambush. It's nice to get an unexpected letter from Jane Gillmore. It's nice to unearth a reserve fund of silk stockings under a sofa pillow. And especially it's nice to find a Cold Boiled Potato on a pantry shelf at midnight. ”

“ The mashed potatoes left from dinner can be worked up with a little cream and molded into small round cakes, to be fried brown next morning.
CREAMED POTATOES
Often in buying potatoes one finds a quantity of little ones usually considered "too small to be bothered with." They seem hardly worth peeling, but if scrubbed clean and boiled as directed the skins can be removed quickly when they are tender. Then if a white sauce is made, these little potato balls can be dropped in and served garnished with finely chopped parsley on top. ”

“ There are only seven distinct methods of cooking potatoes, namely: roasting, baking, boiling, steaming, stewing, frying, and broiling. But the culinary possibilities of this simple esculent are so illimitable it can be served in about as many different ways as there are days in the year, and be acceptable in all of them, if properly done; for no member of the vegetable kingdom returns a richer reward for the care bestowed upon it than the potato. ”