On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:31:14 -0600, zxcvbob <zxcvbob@charter.net> wrote:

-->Shadowdog wrote:
-->> Which is better for sweet potato pie, sweet potatoes or yams?
-->
-->
-->As Jill said, anything you buy in the US (without going to a specialty
-->market) called a "yam" is really a sweet potato. The terms are used
-->interchangeably.
-->
-->Bob

What Bob said is absolutely true.
The softer, orange variety is commonly marketed as a yam in parts of North
America, a practice intended to differentiate it from the firmer, white
variety. The USDA requires that sweet potatoes labelled as "yams" also be
labelled as "sweet potatoes".