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Yams, Baked
Choose small yams; wash them, and cut a slice off the whole length of one side, put it on again, and bake the yam in a moderately hot oven. When it is done, remove the slice, and scrape the inside out with a fork, add a little butter, pepper, and salt, and beat it up with a fork. It can either be served in a dish or put back and served in the shell.
A straightforward baked-and-mashed root, of the same family as the baked potato, with one quirk worth understanding: the lengthwise slice is a steam vent and a lid at once.
- The slice is the hingeCutting a strip off one side and replacing it gives a clean opening for scraping out the flesh, and may also let some steam escape during baking. Set the yam cut-side up so the strip stays put; do not seal it back with foil.
- Which yamA Victorian British cookbook means a true yam (Dioscorea) from the West Indies or West Africa: dry, starchy, pale, thick-skinned. A US supermarket "yam" is a sweet potato and behaves quite differently, cooking faster, sweeter and much moister. Either works here, but the true yam is what the recipe is describing, and it needs more butter and more salt.
- "Moderately hot oven"Read that as roughly 375-400F, bearing in mind that Victorian oven terms were not standardised: hotter than a plain moderate oven, short of a quick one.
- TimingSmall yams of 8-10 oz take about 45 minutes to an hour; larger ones an hour and a quarter or more. Test with a skewer through the thickest part, which should meet no resistance. True yam that is only nearly done stays unpleasantly firm and chalky in the middle.
- Beating upWork the flesh while it is genuinely hot. True yam stiffens as it cools and is harder to beat smooth once cold. A fork gives the coarse texture intended; a processor will make it pasty.
- Seasoning"A little butter" is conservative for a starchy yam; a tablespoon per medium yam is not too much, and the flesh takes considerably more salt than potato. A grating of nutmeg or a spoonful of cream is in keeping with the period if you want it.
- Serving in the shellSkins of true yam are thick and hold their shape well, so the refilled shell can go back into the oven for ten minutes to colour the top. Sweet potato skins are thinner and more likely to collapse when scraped out.
- YieldOne small yam per person as a side dish, alongside roast or curried meat.
Yams reached British kitchens through the colonial trade, and a late-Victorian general dictionary of cookery carried them as a matter of course alongside the household staples: readers included families returning from the West Indies, West Africa and India, and cooks catering to them. The name itself is generally traced to a West African word for "to eat" adopted into the trade languages of the Atlantic, and yams have long been confused with sweet potatoes. The method here is simply the English baked potato transferred wholesale onto an unfamiliar root, without any inquiry into how it was cooked in its home countries.