Yam

Let me tell you about yam, and let's be honest from the start — yam is not sweet potato, even though markets mix them up on the same shelf often enough that you can't trust the label alone.

Yam is a starchy tuber, and starch is exactly why it behaves the way it does in the pot. Raw, it is hard as wood, and you shouldn't be tasting it raw anyway — many yams need cooking before they're fit to eat. Give it heat and water, and the starch grains swell and soften, turning that woodiness into tender flesh — good for boiling, good for frying, good for pounding into a stiff, heavy mash that holds its own weight on the plate.

Choose yam the way you choose any root: firm, heavy for its size, no soft spots, no smell of damp earth or mold. The skin is rough and bark-like, sometimes even hairy — that's normal, not a flaw.

Now the misconception. Some people say yam is just a sweet potato by another name, so you can cook them the same way. No! Yam is drier, starchier, less sweet. Treat it like sweet potato and expect the wrong texture — too firm where you wanted silk, too stiff where you wanted soft — wrong tuber, wrong result.