Queen Honey B.: Love from the Soil

Fall is slowly fading here in Southeast Ohio. Everyday someone buys the very last pie pumpkin off of a dusty wooden shelf at a local orchard. Each night more and more potato sacks appear, draped over delicate perennials like a small herd of winter scarecrows dotting the yards, gardens and picket fences of this rural metropolis. I have reaped and enjoyed the gifts fall has offered to me this season. My exploits have included pumpkin pie, roasted butternut squash and cauliflower, potato & turnip soup, and spicy apple muffins. As the days get shorter, and the survival rate of outdoor vegetables hanging on by a vine or a stem gets lower and lower along with the temperature, there is one of autumn’s delightful treasures which I will miss dearly until next August. I will spend the winter, spring and summer heartbroken and pining for sweet potatoes.

For me, sweet potatoes are like young love from the soil. They are the breathtaking gasp of being kissed for the first time. They are the delicate, nervous brush of one hand on another while sitting side by side in a dark movie theater. They are consuming thoughts and sleepless nights of wild and running imagination. The first moment I begin to fall for sweet potatoes year in and year out is when I smell them. Heaped into a basket, coated with dirt like ancient artifacts unearthed from tombs, they smell like I imagine the core of the Earth to smell. They are maternal and rustic, filling my nostrils with pungency and the stinging smell of broken ground. For my love to blossom and grow they must also be warm, freshly pulled from dry, sandy soil, retaining the virile heat that penetrates even the depths of the underworld where sweet potatoes lie, below the fauna and flora. A fresh sweet potato on a fall day is love at first sight, first kiss and thinking about the unthinkable.

A sweet potato’s possibilities are endless. One of my favorite ways to enjoy them is to simply roast them, tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper and rosemary. In fact, I often find myself in conflict debating whether or not to tamper with their naturally pleasing flavor by preparing or using them any other way. This season I took on a new challenge after being inspired by my close proximity to the American South (in fact, Southeast Ohio often resembles the American South and may in fact be the stitching on the seam of the Bible Belt). Baking with sweet potatoes was a new concept to me this season. Certainly I’d heard of sweet potato pie, but that’s really more custard than it is bakery. I decided to throw myself into the endeavors of using sweet potatoes in baked goods as I’d use bananas, pumpkin or applesauce. The results were successful, and took my teenage love of sweet potatoes to a whole new level. Within the stretchy nooks and crannies of a biscuit mixed with homey banana and cinnamon, the sweet potato became familial. I felt the comfort found in my thoughts and company of loved ones folded into the lumpy batter of sweet potato muffins, baked with the soft notes of ground rosemary. Finally, the new, subtle closeness of my relationship with my one and only sibling, my sister, could at best be expressed to me through tender, spongy bites of sweet potato cupcakes enamored with antique cardamom and topped with a dollop of fluffy caramel frosting.

Last night I used my very last sweet potato of the season to make a tray of crispy oven fries, mixed with matchsticks of local Yukon Gold potatoes and tossed in salt, pepper, cinnamon, chipotle chili powder and granulated garlic. They were exquisite, and I had to stop myself from eating the entire tray with my meal. While I’ve been seeing the signs, receiving the passive messages, and getting the hint as the nights become frosty and the days turn to simply hours of sunlight, it is still sad for me to believe my seasonal affair with sweet potatoes has come to an end. I can, at least, take comfort in knowing that next August, after taking a long, lonely winter for myself, I’ll be able to fall in love all over again.