A Thanksgiving Mishap

A Thanksgiving Mishap

Once again I was asked to make my “yam casserole” for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. However, I don’t use yams, people! I use sweet potatoes. Yams are very starchy bland tubers whereas sweet potatoes are not starchy, they’re creamy and have lots of sugar. Grocery stores mislabel these two all the time. Well, they do look a lot alike, that’s for sure. They both come in shades of four colors: brown, orange, purple and white.

My sweet potato casserole is bright orange with marshmallows melted on top. If I don’t use marshmallows my family will gripe: “Where are the marshmallows? Did you forget them? Should we run to the store and buy some?” Yes, run to the store and buy some.

And buy some wine too.

This year I discovered a sweet potato recipe online that sounded extra tasty because it has a pecan topping (or crust, or crumble) that would pair well with marshmallows. My family makes great Thanksgiving dishes like stuffed mushrooms, deep fried turkey, asparagus and squash soups, and blueberry pies. And a gourmet green bean casserole instead of the beloved recipe that calls for fried onion rings in a can. It was time to jazz up my casserole.

My sister volunteered to go to the grocery store, so I asked her to select sweet potatoes like the ones I buy from Walmart. They are large reddish-brown potatoes with bright orange flesh. We have eaten them many times. One might think they are yams but they are REALLY sweet potatoes. She said,

“Do you mean the dark purple sweet potatoes?”

“Dark reddish, like the ones we usually get.”

“You mean purple?”

“Dark reddish-brown.”

“Purple,” she insisted.

Purple vs reddish-brown—do we see colors differently?

“As long as they are really sweet potatoes, they should be fine,” I said.

“Roger that,” said my sister, a great cook who knows her potatoes.

My sister insisted on purple and purple they were, arriving with those sticky little labels that I had to pry off. I washed the huge purple roots, pricked them rather violently with a fork and stuck them in the oven for one hour and fifteen minutes. They were done exactamundo. So far so good.

The next step was to peel the potatoes, mash them, then mix the mash with brown sugar, salted butter, cinnamon, vanilla, salt, eggs and milk. To avoid playing hot potato, I waited for them to cool down from the oven and because they were huge, this took 30 minutes. Were they easy to peel? Have you ever tried peeling Scotch tape off a window?

I scraped the skins off with a paring knife, unlike the orange fleshed sweet potatoes of yore, who undressed themselves with a nudge. And when I saw the innards of the purple potatoes, I was shocked. Where was the orange flesh so tasty and pretty? These skinned potatoes were a sickly whitish/yellow color. Doubt crept into my mind. Were they really sweet potatoes? Or were they actually—god forbid—YAMS?

I slapped a determined look on my face and followed the recipe. I mashed them, then added the sugar and spice mix and stirred thoroughly. The potatoes still didn’t look good—like a bowl of anemic Cream of Wheat. I tasted them. They were as bland as Wonder bread. Darn it---well maybe the pecan topping and marshmallows would render it sweet.

The pecan topping: Combine brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt, melted butter, and chopped pecans. That done, I rinsed the aluminum pan from Walmart that has a handy plastic dome, and sprayed the pan with PAM. I spooned the mash into the pan and smoothed it with a knife. How I wished these peckish potatoes were the bright orange ones I usually served! I spread the pecan topping onto the potatoes and baked the casserole for 35 minutes. After it cooled I put the plastic dome over the pan and put the casserole to bed in the refrigerator.

Thanksgiving Day arrived and amid the chaos in the kitchen my sister shoved my casserole into the oven for me. It needed a few minutes under the broiler to melt the marshmallows. In the meantime I yakked with my relatives in the living room instead of watching the time. Suddenly I heard someone yell, “OH MY GOSH!” and smoke billowed from my oven like Mt. Saint Helens blowing its top. My sister slapped on mitts and rescued the casserole.

It was not a pretty sight. The marshmallows had turned into brutish brown lumps. There was no tantalizing gooey white sugary topping. The dismay must have shown on my face because, “Don’t worry, Grandma,” my teenaged granddaughter said reassuringly, “We like our marshmallows burnt.” Campfire burnt yes. Oven burnt NO. That’s what I get for yakking instead of watching the clock!

The crusty pecan topping was rubbery and hard to cut through because the marshmallows and topping had melded together to form super glue. The gritty mash beneath it was cemented to the sides of the dish—it took a knife to pry it loose. My vision of a beautiful casserole evaporated into smoky air. Sweet potato casserole my eye! It was a damned YAM casserole!

The adventurers in the family partook of the casserole, but I was not happy. I didn’t hear one person exclaim, “Yum, this is so good. Can I have the recipe?” In fact I think only my daughter said that she really liked it. And she is a very kind person. The lesson: choose the produce yourself, or provide an explicit picture of said produce. Don’t believe the internet recipe is delicious until you’ve tried it and don’t try it out at a family celebration. And most of all, doublecheck labels and DON’T BUY YAMS! (You can use canned “YAMS” because they are actually sweet potatoes! A little known fact. Fake label!) Mea culpa. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Happy Thanksgiving to you!

P.S. In fact, my daughter, granddaughter and I actually ate the leftover casserole (of which there was a lot). We survived.