I was making a pot of soup. My grandmother’s recipe. A basic lentil and vegetable soup. The recipe called for potatoes. I had no potatoes. Damn.
I dig around my pantry. Looky looky what we have here. Sweet potato. Sure, why not. That’s a viable replacement. Let’s see what happens, shall we?
What happened: probably the best pot of soup I’ve ever made.
That was the moment I realised that regular ol’ potatoes ever again could go in the trash forever.
Friends, I am here to make a powerful argument. It’s an argument you might disagree with. I am here to tell that regular potatoes are waste of goddamn time. I am here to tell you that regular potatoes are boring and bland and tasteless and what’s even the point of regular potatoes when sweet potatoes exist.
Sweet potatoes. They’re like regular potatoes, only sweet. They’re like regular potatoes only better in every single conceivable way. This is not opinion it’s hard fact.
I’m not going to get into the health debate here. The sweet potato has long been granted ‘superfood’ status, but nutritionists are in the process of debunking that. The common argument: sweet potatoes have a lower Glycemic Index (GI) than normal potatoes, meaning they are digested more slowly and cause less of an insulin spike – all good things if you’re trying to control your appetite and lose weight.
But it’s not as cut and dried as all that. GI is a complex beast and, in this particular case, it’s all dependent on the type of potato, how the potatoes are prepared and – insanely – the kind of food you’re eating alongside the potatoes.
In short: the health argument for sweet potatoes over regular potatoes probably exists but I’m not going to make it.
Good thing there are a hundred other reasons why sweet potatoes crap on regular potatoes from the highest possible height.
Reasons like…
They Taste Better
I have no earthly idea why a person would cook and eat a regular potato. They are bland. They have very little taste and need to be eaten alongside something else. They are a complimentary food. Meat and potatoes. Fish and chips. They are the thing you eat because they come with the thing you want to eat.
“Hey want a chip?”
You say this. You offer them to your friends. You offer them to your friends because deep down you don’t want to eat them. Eating them is a social norm. A habit you’ve become accustomed to.
Sweet potato is different. Goddamn it if sweet potatoes are exactly what they say on the tin: they’re sweet. Not sickly sweet like pumpkin, sweet in a subtle way. Sweet in a way that isn’t overpowering. Eating regular potatoes is a chore, eating sweet potato is a pleasant surprise.
They’re Easier To Prepare
Regardless of where you fall on ‘potato-gate’, we can all agree that peeling potatoes sucks. This is just another reason why sweet potatoes are superior to regular potatoes – they’re easier to peel.
Think about it: sweet potatoes are massive. Regular potatoes are small. When you peel a sweet potato you’re getting way more potato for your peel. Think about it in surface layer terms: regular potatoes are just way more work. This isn’t just a numbers game, they’re also way harder to peel because of the size issue. Way more fernickety. I’ve never cut my fingers peeling gargantuan sweet potatoes, but with regular potatoes it’s like I’ve gone 12 rounds with fucking Wolverine.
This is important.
Sweet Potatoes Make Better Snacks
Of all my completely watertight arguments about the superiority of sweet potatoes, this is the one I’ll most willingly accept is a matter of taste.
Personally I think sweet potato fries taste better than regular fries – although both are a waste of calories.
Personally I much prefer sweet potato chips to regular chips. Red Rock Deli’s sweet potato range is just PERFECTION. They are the perfect goddamn chip.
The end.
Bugger It I Lied, Let’s Talk About Health
They’re probably more healthy. Just a little bit. Like it’s close, don’t get me wrong, but they are a tiny bit more healthy than regular potatoes, alright?
Don’t quote me on that even though I just wrote it, okay?
Point being, there is no real reason for you to be eating normal potatoes because sweet potatoes are here and they’re better on every possible, measurable level. This is science. This is reason. This is evolution. Survival of the fittest. I’m sorry regular potatoes, you had your time in the sun, but we have to move on, To fresher climes, to flavour country. Population: sweet potato.
I’m here. The weather is great. Everyone’s having a good ol’ time.
Join me.
Comments
19 responses to “Regular Potatoes Are Dead, Long Live Sweet Potatoes”
how is this even a question?
sweet potato > normal potato. thats an objective, scientific fact.
sweet potato fries with a good aioli are the fkn bomb.
tied with onion rings for best pub food snack.
boil em, mash em, put em in a stew?
http://www.gifbin.com/981631
They’re waffley versatile!
Oh, wrong ad?
I’m with you… except for mash potatoes. I make really good, creamy mash potatoes and you just can’t do that with sweet potatoes. They taste nice, just turn out too watery.
Now can we get rid of lettuce? Replace lettuce with spinach muhuhahaha.
Masaman curry with sweet potatoes is heavenly
But I love baby (new) potatoes that are so fresh and delicate you don’t have to do anything other than wash and cook them. Leaving the skin on makes them much healthier because you’re keeping all the fibre, and they taste better too. So I like tiny red potatoes roasted with olive oil, garlic and herbs, or smashed potatoes (gently boiled, slightly squashed and then pan-fried), or potato salad made with whole baby potatoes (baby kipfler potatoes are THE BEST SALAD POTATOES).
As someone who doesn’t like sweet potato, you can take your opinion and jam it where the sweet potato belongs.
Give me mashed potato made with real potatoes with a bit of garlic and herbs through it, oh yeah
I’m with you Si. Sweet potatoes are meh. Ordinary potatoes are great. Mashd, roasted, chips – the only way is ordinary potatoes.
Solution… don’t peel them?
With the utmost respect, you sir are so very, very wrong.
It’s obviously been too long since your last helping of crispy, garlic-and-herb roast potatoes.
I mean yes, I can appreciate sweet potatoes, sure.
But it’s like comparing oranges and apples, or in this case – potatoes and oversized carrots.
You shut your whore mouth
I never really got into them until we found out my wife was allergic to plants that are high in alkaloid (nightshades). Potatoes being a big one, sweet potatoes though are from a different family and have a low alkaloid level.
Dear @markserrels
You are wrong.
Yours sincerely,
SmurfyDog.
This is about as sensible as saying that we’ve invented a car, so bicycles are dead.
There’s room (and a reason) for both, Shirley?
Sweet potatoes may serve a purpose but the biggest clue to why they aren’t better than potatoes is the first word – “Sweet”.
I mean, seriously, why would I choose a sweetened version of something that can be easily seasoned to perfection? Just like sugar in tea or coffee doesn’t make it better, nor does sweetness in my potato. I can add sweetness to my good old potato dishes if I want to but I can’t take it out of a sweet potato dish, only mask it with another flavour.
For the record – anyone that doesn’t love their regular chips with their fish and chips is going to the wrong place to buy them. You have to pry my chips out of my cold, dead hand if you want some!
This is a troll, right?
Just in case you’re not trolling, you might be unaware that they are two different vegetables; one is NOT a version of the other with added sugar. A sweet potato actually has LESS sugar than a normal potato (0.5 vs 0.78 per 100gms)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_potato
If you like regular chips, why not try Sweet Potato/Yam/Kumera chips? You might be agreeably surprised.
I’m just going to make a huge assumption that the author simply bought pre-washed, god-awful coliban potatoes up until now to reach such a derisory conclusion.
Different potatoes are suited to different preparation except of course the trash coliban which belong in the, the, the… trash (yes I’m a hypocrite for categorically slamming something too). Age is also a big factor on the sugar content and how it cooks. Finally a potato should never be washed until its ready to be used. Sweet potato is great but doesn’t simply usurp all the other tubers Source: Grandparents had a small potato farm on the side.
At first I thought “you couldn’t be more wrong”, then I read this line about chips “You offer them to your friends because deep down you don’t want to eat them” and I realised no, the author is actually delusional. Put the dangerous potato peeler down and we’ll wait for the nice me to come and help you.
To you it’s a sweet potato, to me it’s a sweet potato. But to Mister Mark Bloody Serrels it’s country estates, fine carriages, and as many girls as his tongue can cope with. He’s making a fortune out of the things; people are smoking them, building houses out of them… They’ll be eating them next.