When you cut out a food group as big as meat, people are always surprised when you don’t eat what they consider to be a non-meat staple. Luke is completely baffled by the fact that I don’t eat onions and peppers and is kind of surprised that I haven’t just dropped dead. I mean, after all, if I don’t eat meat, that’s one thing. But if I don’t eat meat or onions and peppers, how in the hell can I survive? Is it all grilled cheese and tree bark?
Needless to say, there is plenty I can eat. I’ll even let the occasional onion slip in, if I’m feeling brave. But there is one food that vegetarians seem to love, that meat eaters spoon onto their plates in heaping helpings, that is a staple on Thanksgiving tables all across the country. It is a food that I can’t even think of without getting full-body shivers and whimpering a little bit.
You guys, I hate sweet potatoes.
Even after writing that last sentence, I had to step away from the computer for a little while. I can’t even think of them. It’s the weirdest thing: actually, come to think of it, it’s not. Cate has nearly the same aversion to onions. I love potatoes in general, and they probably factor way too heavily into my diet. So to me, a sweet potato is like taking something awesome and completely bastardizing it. Like rubbing a kitten around in vomit, or taking a beach vacation only to realize after you’ve slapped on the sunblock and donned your swimsuit that the sand has been replaced with broken glass and the ocean is now tepid hot dog water.
Straight up baked sweet potatoes are bad enough, but when people do that thing they love to do so much on Thanksgiving where they mash it up and put sugar in it and top it with marshmallows and bake it until everything gets all sticky and runny? I want to cry myself to death.
My sister has the exact same aversion as I do. I don’t think it’s genetic, rather it stems from a particularly traumatic dinner probably about 15 or so years ago where my mom, completely out of the blue, decided to make us sweet potatoes for dinner. My sister and I tried them and quickly realized that they came straight from the bowels of Satan himself. My mother though, for some reason, was upset by this and made us eat them. She never forced us to eat food, but that night she was insistent that we eat those damn potatoes — and we haven’t spoken to her since.
Okay, that last part isn’t true, but Oh My God, it probably should be. It’s so bad that about 7 or 8 years ago, we were at a family function with the dreaded dish and I offered my sister five bucks if she ate a spoonful of it. Now this is a girl who’ll do anything for five bucks (heh), and to her credit, she tried. In the end though, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Someone almost got me once by telling me that they were serving yams. I didn’t know this at the time, but YAMS ARE THE SAME THING. It was a close call that almost lead to me murdering an entire dinner party.
Now I stay as far away from sweet potatoes as possible. It’s something I haven’t gotten over so far, and it’s something I have no interest in getting over in the future. I’ll just stick with my tree bark and grilled cheese, and live a perfectly happy life.
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on May 01, 2009 @ 14:00 EST5EDT
But Kona, you must realize that there are savory, rather than just sweet, ways to prepare “sweet” potatoes, right? One of my favorites is to roast them, then toss them with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, cilantro and lime juice. Totally yummy! Please don’t let the marshmallow version of swtpo’s drive you away from them forever!
I must admit, however, that I felt the same way you did when I was a kid – “potatoes” + marshmallows??? Are you frickin’ kidding me?? But as an adult, I have come to appreciate both sweet and savory presentations of sweet potatoes.
Having been a very picky eater as a child, I’m convinced that there are tastes that our childhood palates are just not ready to appreciate, but that our mature palates can experience differently. It still doesn’t mean we’ll love those tastes as adults, but we might feel differently about them than we did when we were kids.
For example — I will never forget the time when I was a little girl that my father tried to convince me that the cherry tomatoes he had grown in our garden were delicious. He tempted me to try one with these words “It tastes just like a cherry!”. I’m sure you can imagine the spit take that subsequently occurred. No, Dad, it did NOT taste ANYTHING like a cherry!!! But do I now, as an adult, like tomatoes — oh, yes!!
Unfortunately, my 8 year old (as of tomorrow) daughters do not like tomatoes (or as they continue to call them, “potatoes”) or sweet potatoes, but they are FAR more culinarily adventurous than I was as a child, so I really can’t complain. I just have to wait until their palates catch up. My latest victory with them — spinach!!! That was so momentous that I’m actually going to post a blog about it!
Sweet potato fries… toss them in olive oil and roast them in the oven on 400 degrees convection roast for 20-30 minutes — yum! Sea salt and freshly ground pepper is all you need.
I don’t HATE sweet potatoes, but I just don’t GET them. I usually like the sweet/savory combination of flavors, but sweet potatoes are just, meh. I feel the same way about butternut squash. By themselves, they’re alright, but there’s absolutely nothing I would want to eat them with, so what is the point?
deebopalula and Debbie: I hate everything you said. At least I think you do. I lost consciousness somewhere in the middle.