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No Small Potato
Here in our new home, we’re only a short drive across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel from Cape Charles now, so I shouldn’t have been so surprised Saturday when I found Haymans at the farmers’ market, but I was, since it’s been years since I’ve been reminded of them, or eaten one. Let me introduce you.
The name is Hayman Sweet Potato. Not a yam. Sweet potatoes are the root of Morning Glory vines and can be eaten raw. Yam is the tuber of a vine in Central and South America that is toxic if eaten raw.
The Hayman sweet potato arrived from the West Indies in 1856, aboard a ship (the Harriet Ryan) with Captain Daniel Hayman who docked in Elizabeth City, NC, 30 minutes from here. A Methodist minister bought a bunch of Hayman’s potatoes, and they became popular through the network of Methodist preachers; Methodists dominated the Easter Shore and coastal North Carolina at that time, so the news of this tasty import traveled quickly.
The Hayman is rather innocuous looking, maybe ugly; dirty looking, smaller than the grocery store sweet potato, it has a bumpy surface, with a greenish flesh, and creamy-yellowish skin. Now considered an heirloom variety, it has been prized on the Eastern Shore for generations.
Not many farmers raise Haymans as a cash crop. They get fewer potatoes per acre, weigh less, and they don’t store well, making the profit margin something to think about. The potatoes can’t be consumed for two weeks after harvesting as they must “cure.” To help that along, farmers who produce them cure them at low heat before taking them to market.
One of the few farms to grow Haymans as a cash crop is the Picketts Harbor Farm in Cape Charles, Virginia, where Farmer Nottingham digs 4,000 pounds a season and keeps a waiting list of clients from North Carolina to New York, who order ahead for the holidays.
On Saturday at the farmers’ market I wanted to buy two potatoes for our supper, but there were no potatoes. Then I saw the basket of Haymans. We ate our two Haymans for dinner. They will be the only ones we have until next October. The farmer had a half bushel-basket full, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. “No more till next October,” he said. We rubbed the skins with olive oil and sprinkled the potatoes with sea salt before baking them at 350 degrees. The farmer told me not to pierce the skin before eating it. “Don’t test it with a fork,” he said. “Press it with your fingers. If it’s soft it’s ready.” It was delicious. The texture seems more like a squash than a potato, actually. If you find one, let me know what you think.