One day last week Gonzalo came by with a few orange sweet potatoes. I went pretty crazy as we seldom see orange sweets here. So I begged for him to find me more and yesterday he gave me a bag full of these orange beauties. I love the purple ones, don’t get me wrong, they are delicious and super sweet. But when making a sweet potato souffle where I add eggs and brown sugar the resulting color is really off-putting. The combination of the yellow egg yolks, brown sugar and purple potatoes turns almost black. Again not very appetizing.
I can remember our first Thanksgiving here, we were living in Salinas and were invited to Will’s Coco Bar for a traditional US style Thanksgiving. I decided to make my sweet potato souffle which is usually well received and finished off. It did not go over well. Honestly it tasted very similar to the ones I had made in the states but the color, it was scary. I ended up bringing home half a dish full and chucking it in the trash.
Today I have enough to make sweet potato fries. We will see how Joe likes them.
Joe loved them and they vanished.
I guess making friends with your vegetable vendor, the meat guy and the rest of the folks who come by on the street does make a big difference. Thanks Gonzalo, you are the best for finding these for me.
Finding our Paradise in South America 
Hi Nan. Does he have a special name for them. We live in Cuenca and haven’t been able to find them here. Lots of purples. Would like to make a sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving. Thanks, Barb DeVolld
Hi Barb, when I ask him about the naranja (orange) sweet potatoes he says amarillo (yellow). But I will ask him when I see him this week if there is a word in Spanish for them. I only had these one time before and that was a friend from Las Tunas visited Peru and she brought them back and planted them and brought us a bag full. I did plant a few plants, got a very small harvest and they never grew again. This was a real treasure and baked as sweets they were great. Nancy
I wish I would have known we we visited you in Ecuador. Ron is the sweet potato king of Ometepe Island. Five years ago a friend asked us what we wanted from the states and I told her to smuggle a sweet potato in her bag. She did and from that one sweet potato, we have grown tons of sweet potatoes and given cuttings to everyone. They grow really well in Nicaragua and aren’t affected by insects or other critters. We have made sweet potato pies, fries, sweet potato bread, stew, baked sweet potatoes, you name it. They are delicious.
Deb, It is wonderful that we have the purple sweets, but for some recipes they just don’t do it. I hate to be the one always complaining about “what we could get back in the states” so I just work with what we have. I do ask folks to bring me spices, baking soda and things like sneakers, bras, boxer shorts for Joe. Because I like a loose sneaker I want a size 9 1/2 or better yet 10…here sizes for women are max 8 1/2 that is just not enough for my chubby toes. Don’t get me started on bras, I cannot wear a B cup, and bigger are non-existent. So when my friend Patricia brought these lovely orange sweet potatoes from Peru I jumped on growing them. But I do not have a big area so I planted in planters, it worked I had sweet potatoes but only a few, I did saw one small one and started a new batch but they did not grow, well the plant was huge, full of leaves and looked very healthy but there were no potatoes just flimsy roots. I was so happy to see these in Gonzalo’s cart…hope he can get me more. Nancy