In the kitchen at work, as I was preparing some coffee, my ears sent me rumors of a conversation on a topic that greatly concerned me. Were they really talking about the difference between sweet potatoes and yams in the reception area just outside? It became clearer and clearer to me that they were. Eventually, as I hovered closer and closer, their eyes turned to me, and to me they directed the wobbling queries that had been looping around in ever-wilder orbits of indecision.
There are many cases of children being raised in exotic locations and coming back to the dreary colonial homeland with airs of Kubla Khan. These insufferable children, described with sympathy in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s books, for example, alienate their playmates with the false grandeur they feel for having seen untamed landscapes and eaten indescribable tropical fruits. I am afraid I might have been such a child for a while after a short, barely remembered Caribbean sojourn in my near-infancy, and I now take pains to avoid projecting such privileged superiority. Still, when yams are misidentified I feel it deeply.
Sweet potatoes are clearly understood. When asked to indicate a sweet potato, no one will hesitate to point out the lovely orange potatolike root with its delicious properties and important vitamins.
However, a horrifying number of people, especially in the South, will call this same tuber a “yam.” My mother used to cook yams. If you have ever tasted their dense, buttery texture, their sweet, hard, grainy flesh, you will know that this is an unforgivable confusion. It is hopeless to explain it to anyone, for the reasons mentioned above and because yams are not commonly available here.
Does this explain the immense good fortune of being asked to discuss the difference between the two vegetables, twenty-three years after my transplantation to this country, at 9:30 in the morning in an office building in Dallas? And after a heartfelt exposition on the subject, allowing all the respect in the world for those who retained their own (mistaken) opinions, to receive this vindicating link from a coworker who had researched the matter after our conversation?
My soul longs for your salvation;
I hope in your word.
My eyes long for your promise;
I ask, “When will you comfort me?”
For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke,
yet I have not forgotten your statutes.
How long must your servant endure?
When will you judge those who persecute me?
The insolent have dug pitfalls for me;
they do not live according to your law.
All your commandments are sure;
they persecute me with falsehood; help me!
They have almost made an end of me on earth,
but I have not forsaken your precepts.
In your steadfast love give me life,
that I may keep the testimonies of your mouth.
