
In response to a question once asked of me: “If I could marry one food for the rest of my life, what would it be?” I firmly and abruptly came to the conclusion the answer was the sweet potato.
Sweet potatoes are healthy and full of anti-oxidants. They are colorful, firm in texture, sweet in flavor, and extremely versatile. You can do anything with a sweet potato. I can’t think of a situation with a sweet potato that would not turn me on. I love them under any circumstances, with any accompaniments or additions, and I think it’s important to marry a food (or a person) that you can put in any situation and be content. As much as I passionately adore cake — I can’t eat cake for breakfast. It’s too sweet. Too rich. Too much of a treat. You can’t marry a treat — it seems like endless enjoyment but in reality, it’s just a temporary high. You can’t have cake every day for the rest of your life. You’ll get sick.
Brussels sprouts are super-healthy, but after 36 years, I know myself too well, and I refuse to envision a life with that kind of goody-goody healthiness every day. I will never marry brussels sprouts, even though I love them, even though they are delicious most ways — fried, roasted with butternut squash, etc. — because eventually I would start craving something a little more habit-forming. A little more comforting. Like mashed sweet potatoes.
Think about it — you can make sweet potato chips. Sweet potato fries. Sweet potato pie. Sweet potato mousse, which I make with evaporated milk and eggs to create a pudding that is served warm with a crumbly-buttery-shredded-coconut topping with pecans and sugar. Or I can just cook them and eat them plain — nothing on them. Not even salt. They are simply delicious in their purest form, and if they are clean, you can just pop them in the microwave for 5–7 minutes and they are ready to go!
That is why I will marry the sweet potato! Which in my world, is the man who most resembles its curiously delectable yet wholesomely comforting spirit. Because to me, marriage is about commitment, consistency, comfort, and cooperation. I can attribute all of these to the marvelously versatile and lovingly constant “Ipomoea Batatas” aka “Sweet Potato”.
NOTE: I drafted this essay last summer, and since its completion, I am happy to say I have met my “Sweet Potato.” His name is Chad, and he is everything I envisioned in this essay and then some. So to any ladies who have yet to find that special someone, do not lose hope! Perhaps look to the people in your romantic past. Maybe you haven’t been sampling from a balanced selection. Maybe like me, you were going after raw cookie dough, scraping the icing off a cupcake, or trying to gorge yourself on baked kale and finding the variety to be lacking. You might be just one complex carbohydrate away from true love.
