The interesting story of the yam on your holiday table.

Contrary to what you might think, most Americans have never eaten a yam. In the 1930’s food marketing people started incorrectly identifying sweet potatoes as “yams”. This misidentification has continued to this day. Modern sweet potatoes, like yams are of tropical origins, however they are an entirely different genus and species.

Sweet potatoes are Ipomoea batatas and classified as a true tuber type storage root (like other potatoes). Yams are members of the genus Dioscoreae are also starchy tubers, but are more closely related to the grass and lilly families of plants. These tropical starchy tubers are very important to the diets of many cultures and are important in many types of herbal medicine.

The genus “Diosocreae” encompasses the many plants of the yam family and were named after Pedanios Dioskurides (Dioscorides). He was a first century (CE) Greek physician, born in Tarus (Turkey) and possibly a doctor in the Roman army. Little is known about his life, however he did write several important books on herbal medicine. His books were actively used as a medical reference for close to 1600 years. By some accounts his books formed the basis of the work of the famous physician Galen.

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