I yam what I yam

Let's make this clear, folks: a sweet potato is not the same thing as a yam. Sweet potatoes have an orange-ish skin, while yams have a yuckish brown skin. I think this is a southern thing, confusing yams with sweet potatoes, although, biologically, they are not even in the same family. The sweet potato is a member of the family Convolvulacae, while the yam is a member of the family Dioscoreaceae. But more important is that in cooking, sweet potatoes are far more preferable to the mealy yams.

Why is it, then, most grocery stores around here stock plenty of yams, but not sweet potatoes? Today I went out looking for sweet potatoes and could not find them at Kroger, Tom Thumb or Wal-Mart. They had plenty of yams, but no sweet potatoes. I finally went to where anyone serious about cooking should go, Central Market, and found exactly what I was looking for.

But I wish other grocery stores in this area would wake up to the fact that yams are not sweet potatoes and should never be used as a substitute for sweet potatoes when cooking something requiring sweet potatoes.