Do you know your yams?
Yams as we know them in the United States are very different from the staple commodity in parts of Africa. Yam is the common name for some species in the genus Dioscorea. These are perennial vines cultivated for the consumption of their starchy tubers.
The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) has traditionally been referred to as a yam in parts of the United States and Canada, but it is not part of this family.
Although it is unclear which came first, the word yam is related to Portuguese inhame or Spanish ñame, which both ultimately derive from the Wolof word nyam, meaning "to sample" or "taste"; in other African languages it can also mean "to eat", e.g. yamyam and doya in Hausa.
Yams are versatile. They can be barbecued; roasted; fried; grilled; boiled; smoked and when grated it is processed into a desert recipe.
Yam tubers can grow up to 8.2 ft in length and weigh up to 154 lb.
The tubers can be stored up to six months without refrigeration, which makes them a valuable resource for the yearly period of food scarcity at the beginning of the wet season.
ECHO recently harvested a crop of over 500 lbs. of yams from one small section of our Tropical Rainforest Clearing on the Global Farm. Intern David Prins enlisted interns, volunteers and staff members to help harvest his bumper crop.
