Korean Sweet Potato

This isn’t from personal knowledge, just some google-ing, but hopefully it will help:

One of my favorite comfort food — or vegetable, actually — is the Korean sweet potato, goguma. In its raw state, it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish this variety from yam or sweet potato, often from the Caribbean. When cooked, this variety has yellow, rather than orange flesh, and is firmer than other kinds of sweet potatoes. It is less sweet than yam and has a real chestnut-y flavor that I can’t get enough of.

(Copied from http://deliciousbiting.blogspot.com/2005/02/sweetest-potato.html)

A scientific name for Korean yams appears to be Dioscorea batatas. I also saw mentions of varieties named the names “Korean Purple” and “Yama”

Probably stuff you already know, but hopefully there might be a good clue in there.

Matthewop, why do you have an advert as your sig. It seems to be really close to what I would consider spamming. I see you have it on all of your posts.

As per the original post, I couldn’t find much more beyond what gnard shared, but it does look like the variety we’re all familiar with is the “Korean Purple.” It’s got that purple-ish skin and the sweet, chestnut-like flavor. A company called Mericlone labs sells cuttings of various sweet potatoes, and they refer to the Korean one as the Korean Purple…so that is most likely its recognized name.

I just love these. My mom likes to eat them raw. They taste sort of like raw chestnuts when eaten that way, which we also do. I can’t figure out which I love more though, the sweet potato itself or their delicious stems. Yummy as banchan, and divine when my mother adds them to her crab stew.