← New Books Network
New Books Network
Q. Edward Wang, "Staple to Superfood: A Global History of the Sweet Potato" (Columbia UP, 2025)
00:53:58
Loading summary
Transcript28 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hello, everybody. This is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts, and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form, and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:07]
B
Hello, and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with Dr. Edward Wong about his book titled Staple to Superfood, A Global History of the Sweet Potato, published by Columbia University Press in 2025. Now, to some extent, what I find fascinating about this book is that there hasn't been one like this before, because as the title suggests, the sweet potatoes are a staple. They are a superfood. They're everywhere. They're in all sorts of places and times and cuisines. And as this book demonstrates, that's for a reason, right? This food is important nutritionally, is important culturally is important historically, and so helpfully, we get to discuss all of those things together. So this isn't a book about just one place or time. This book helps us understand the food in many places and the connections, too. So for anyone who's ever eaten a sweet potato, I think there's going to be a lot to learn about here and also probably enjoy. So, Edward, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [02:13]
C
Thanks. Thank you, Miranda, you know, for inviting me that it's really a pleasure for me to talk with your audience.
- [02:22]
B
I'm also very pleased to have you. Could you start us off by introducing yourself a little bit and tell us why you decided to write a book about the sweet potato.
- [02:31]
C
That's a very good start. And I'm Edward Wang, I'm currently eminent professor of history at the Rowan University in southern part of New Jersey where I've taught over several decades. And I was born and raised in Shanghai, China and I came to the states say in 1987 so and receiving my PhD in the United States. Then I got this job and I'd be teaching mostly Asian history in my department. But I also have a great interest in examining the ways history was written. So this is in a way, I mean academic speaking is historiography. That's my primary research interest. It was because of this interest that led me to work on this project. But before that I worked on a book called Chopsticks A Cultural and Culinary History, published by Cambridge University Press in 2015. The reason for me to work on both like daily items, everyday kind of thing in our life was because of my interest in the ways history was written or has been written in the post war years. So historians are developing an approach that is try to have a bottom up approach that is not looking at just how the words and the deeds of the leaders or the elites, how they change the course of history, but also how the people's daily lives also experience changes and also provide reasons for the change. So that's the main reason for me to take on these projects for my studying of the history of the chopsticks. I noticed that the reason for the chopsticks to be a primary eating tool for the people in East Asia and the Southeast Asia has something to do with the food supply as well as population growth. In like in China where chopsticks was kind of first invented, people began to use eating tools and the first one was the spoon, not the chopsticks. So gradually but nowadays of course if you go to Asia, you will find that most people just use a pair of chopsticks to eat the food. And this is the reason that I got into this project and I wrote a book on that explaining the way chopsticks became a primary eating tool in the so called chopstick cultural sphere. So in that sense I noticed that during the see after the 15th century and so on, population in Asia in general grow exponentially. So this had private that offered the reason for the chapter to become a more important tool. But I'm not going to get into more details than that. But in answering the question why the population in Asia grow rapidly from the 15th century onward, that had a lot to do with the introduction of the New World crops. In particular, Sweet potato was the first one. Then you have, like, peanuts, you have a corn, you also have the potato. So these are the four major things. That's another one which was not helping the population growth, but it was almost ubiquitous in Asian cooking, that is the chili pepper that are also from the Americas. So all these four, like, food crops helped changing, changed the way people eat in Asia and in the same time also grow the population. So this is how I got into the study of the sweet potatoes, because I quickly noticed that, first of all, you have a lot of books, maybe at least four or five monographs on the history of the potatoes, how the potatoes play its important role in growing the population in Europe and also America. But there was no book, just like you said, Miranda, that is, this is the first book on the history of chopsticks, on the history of the sweet potato. So Zoo Potidido in my research, actually played a very similar, if not more important role in the population growth in Asia, in Southeast Asia, as well as in Africa in more recent decades. So this is how I got into this project.
- [07:45]
B
I always find it so fascinating when book projects kind of come out of previous projects where you didn't go into chopsticks thinking someday you'd write about sweet potatoes. Right. But as one does research, you go, hang on a second, I didn't know this would come up. Right. What happens if I follow that? So very intriguing to have that as the basis of our conversation. And I think some of these things around population growth will definitely come back as we move forward. But we need to make sure we've got something straight, which is not falling into the trap of going, well, hang on. If there's books about the potato and its impact, surely this is already covered. Ripe potato, sweet potatoes, they sound really similar. Isn't that just the same thing? Now, thankfully, you tackle this head on in the book. So can you do something similar here and make sure we understand what actually is a sweet potato?
- [08:39]
C
Yeah, that's actually on page nine in my book, which is near like 500 pages. And the page nine, just like you said, I started with the definition of the sweet potato. The more important thing is that because we combine the two or even confuse the two. But these two food plants, sweet potato and the potato, sounds similar, but they are botanically unrelated. But you can say the only relation was that they are both belonging a very broad category of flowering plants. But in terms of their seeds, the sweet potato is called dicotylidonis plant, which means the seeds has two leaves or more than two leaves. But the potato, I call it white potato, only has one kind of leaf in its seed. The other more important thing is that the sweet potato belongs to this morning glory family, which was very distinctly different from the white potato. And that in that morning glory family, in botany, only sweet potato. And there's another one, you know, another cultiva that is edible that is called Ipomoe aquatica, which in English, in plain English is called a water or river spinach. But Sui Peredo's official name is Ipomoy Batatas. Batatas was the root for the potato. So very interestingly, if you look into the history of the potatoes both and for the Europeans that they had this confuse, that is the potatoes were called in Spanish still called batatas. So batatas can refer to both the sweet potato and the potato. So in that. But as I said that these are two different plants. And the more important thing is that the sweet potato, we are eating the swollen, its swollen roots. So super is a root plant. But potato or the white potato, the swollen tuber is growing on its stem. So tuber can be called to refer to the wild potato, but to refer to the sweet potato, it is better to use the term root is because it's a smaller root that is edible.
- [11:23]
B
Okay, this is very helpful to understand and definitely something we could have easily gotten caught up in without that clarification. So useful to have that sorted. The other thing I think I want us to clarify is something you mentioned earlier, that these in Asia are plants that have come over from the Americas, many of which have an impact on population growth, but not all of them. Right. As you said, the chili shows up everywhere in Asian cuisine, but doesn't really lead to population growth. So why does the sweet potato, why is it such an important source of food for people and animals?
- [11:59]
C
Yes, that's, that's a, you know, another very good question. That is. But in, to answer that question, I think we need to sort of like compare with the white potato or just potato, common potato, they are very similar. I mean, similar in terms of they are being the, the high growing, easy, I mean easy growing and high yield food crops, even though, I mean one is growing on the stem, the other is on the root. But they are very high yield and also high energy. But if we want to be more specific, then sweet potato has the highest energy in its content, even better than the potato. So when we compare with that and the both, of course, are Just like you said, nutritious. So that's also a very important high yield, plus it's high nutrition. That is how the people like both of them. And also the sweet potato is very tolerant on any type of soil. You can grow in any type of soil. So it's. We can call it edific tolerance is higher, could be comparable, even higher than the white potato. So it. You can grow like intercropping, meaning that you can grow other crops, but on the side, on the, say, the food on the margins of the field, you can grow the sweet potato, and it's not competing for other crops. That quality is, you can say, could be also applied to the wild potato. But I think the sweet potato, at least in Asia, is being kind of always planned intercropping with other crops. And the other thing that is the differences between the two, we have seen that not just because the stem and the root. Another difference is that the sweet potato has more advantages than the white pedal in terms of that it can be eaten both raw and cooked. White potato cannot be eaten raw because, I mean, it's not. And also, sweet potato has both the foliage, the leaves and vines can be eaten by both humans and animals. And white potato's leaves are not edible. It can be even poisonous. So these are the things that put these two in the same kind of food category. Very similar, but they were also very different qualities.
- [14:46]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's sounding like the sweet potato is kind of winning on a number of fronts. It's easy to grow. You can eat more of it, you can eat it in more different ways. So lots of reasons why it would definitely be quite enticing to people and animals, or at least it would be if you know all of those things. Right. If one can kind of look at both of them and go, great, here's the comparison table. Therefore, I will choose. But when one first encounters these, that may not be kind of immediately obvious. So can we talk a little bit about the process of people kind of encountering the sweet potato for the first time? If we're thinking, for example, about transmission from the Americas, obviously, before we get to East Asia, we're looking at Oceania. Right. We're looking at the islands of the Pacific. So how and when is the sweet potato showing up there? And was it immediately popular, or did it have a kind of process to get people on board with it?
- [15:41]
C
Yeah, that's a very good question, but also, it's hard to answer. First of all, evidence showed, Archaeological evidence showed that super reached Polynesia, not entire Oceania Only the eastern part of Oceania, that is Polynesia, several centuries before European contact. But then how it reached there, it was still kind of mysterious. There was a Danish explorer in the 1950s trying to make the argument that it was the South Americans. So that means the American Indians in South America brought the food plant to Polynesia, I.e. eastern Island Hawaii and so on. But I think more recent research show that actually possibly it was the Polynesians went to South America and brought back. So there was a lot of still debates on how it reached there. The important thing, or the interesting thing is that in both places, Supiter was pronounced Kumara. Subadut has several names. Patatas was one. There's also called. There's another called Kumara. And the third one is called a kamoti. But those are the both. They are all pronunciations by American Indians and brought back. So it is a way. Still, I think in my book, I try to describe different theories about how the sweet potato were grown in both Polynesia and South America and Central America. But in terms of the soupedo as a food, it has its disadvantage. Or at least in some people, among some communities, souped was not so well liked because it's sweet. So this is why titled the book staple to Superfood. Trying to of course, the title cannot cover all. But a Supra has its interesting feature. That is it has been received differently. So some of the people like its sweetness, like the Europeans. How the Europeans got to the soupedura was because it was sweet. It was discovered by Columbus. But there was still debate about when Columbus brought their plant back to Europe. But it was due to Columbus introduction of the super. But why Columbus took an interest in the superhero was essentially because the Europeans at the time had a sweet tooth. Ever since I think the 11th century, when Europeans through the Crusades got in touch with the people in the Middle east and South Asia and they got in also they got got acquainted with sweet food. Like the words candy, sugar were both from these regions. So ever since then that Europeans developed this desire for sweet food. So when Columbus and his associates discovered sweet potatoes, and there that time was just called potatoes, they called potatoes. And they were potatoes. Actually, Superduro had at least 2,000 varieties. But they found that the sweet variety was more appealing. So the Spaniards introduced the sweet variety to Europe vis a vis the starchy, plain kind of variety which they looked down upon. I mean, the other variety was called edges or age or I mean, it has different names. So but the sweet variety was called Batadas. So it was that Europeans at least in the 16th and 17th centuries took a strong interest, big interest in the sweet potato because it's sweetness. But on the other hand, according to Jennifer Wolf, who wrote a book on the sweet potato, she's a botanist. So she discovered that the most common food plants tend to be taste carriers. So that means that they are themselves not with a strong taste or flavor. So flavor carriers like the rice, like the wheat and also the potatoes. So the sweet potato has its sweetness which can be appealed to certain people, but to some other people. Even among the Asians where the sweet potato is grown like in large quantity, many people don't like the sulpedidol or at least don't like to eat souped every meal because it will kind of cloy them. You know, they feel stomach can be not so so comfortable after eating Strabetto all three meals a day. So this is the, this is the kind of interesting characteristic of the Sobello being kind of received exactly because of its sweetness, but is also because it's Sweden. It was not as popular as today because Zopedo now is ranked number 7th most popular food plant in the world while the white potato was ranked number three. So you can see that. So I think Jennifer Wolf's scientific research as a botanist really revealed some truth. I agree with her. Possibly because even in Taiwan where sweep was growing as a staple food and most people will call it like cold staple. Why it's called cold staple because it's the most common form for sweet potato to be eaten there was to cooked sweet potato in cubes with the rice. So basically making like a rice soup with sweet potato. So that means to, to, to, to lessen the sweetness in the sweet potato in the food, you know. Yeah, so that's, that's my kind of a little bit complicated answer to your question.
- [22:21]
D
New year, new me. Cute. But how about New year, new money? With Experian you can actually take control of your finances. Check your FICO score, find ways to save and get matched with credit card offers giving you time to power through those New Year's goals. You know you're going to crush start the year off right. Download the Experian app based on FICO's Core 8 model offers an approval not guaranteed. Eligibility requirements and terms apply subject to credit check which may impact your credit scores. Offers not available in all states. See experian.com for details.
- [22:49]
B
Experian well, no, it helps us understand kind of two key regions and the adoption of the sweet potato. But obviously for it to be so highly ranked globally, we should probably move to other places too. So can you tell us about the popularity of the sweet potato in South Asia or the Middle East?
- [23:11]
C
Well, in the Middle east the sweeped was always treated as a vegetable. And also not as popular as in other other parts. In South Asia it has the same kind of fate. I think it has something to do with the. You know that from 1453 that Ottomans took over Constantinople basically cut the route, cut down the route for the Europeans to reach Asia. So Europeans like Spaniards and the Portuguese went the other way around. Right. One went through Africa, the other just went directly like Columbus and his followers came to across Atlantic to. To the America. So they have. They were forced. So this also to me I think even in my book I did not discuss so too much on. That is because of the. The rise of the Ottomans that the. The. The. The communication line between Europe and Asia, particularly South Asia was cut off. And so that in a way blocked the transfer of the soy potato to South Asia. But other hand, the Portuguese after went through Good Hope or the African continent reached South Asia. And in certain places in South Asia, like Goa Su potato was integrated into the local cuisine. And possibly the Portuguese also introduced to the western part of Oceania. So but on the hand there was a major introduction or introducer of the super to South Asia was the Spaniards. Spaniards established a new Spain in today's Mexico, right. And also Central America. So there was a frequent say travel from Mexico to the Philippines via the so called Manila galleons, the ships they carry super to the Philippines. And it was from the Philippines that supernatural jump on the Asian mainland which is China. So it was like in the late very at the end of the 16th century then. So Perero was introduced to South China and gradually from there and spread the whole whole continent. And also reached Korean peninsula and also Japan.
- [25:54]
B
Really interesting to think about the kind of the ways in which this travels. Thinking then about some of those key places in East Asia. Looking at China first. Obviously you've outlined a number of reasons why kind of given the choice people by themselves, right? You know, everyday people, as you spoke about in the beginning being your focus would be interested in the sweet potato. But there is an elite government element of this too. You discuss in the book that Chinese officials for instance from the 16th century onwards are very encouraging of everyday people making this choice for the sweet potato. Why?
- [26:32]
C
Yeah, I mean to answer this question, I will first say that the Y potato. I will say you know, a little bit more about why potato were introduced to Europe, maybe possibly not through Columbus, but it was much later. It was at least 50 years later than the supernatural. This is somewhat refer. I mean, kind of coming back to my earlier point that the Europeans initially took an interest in the sweet kind of food, right? But gradually from the 16th century or the 17th century onward, then the white potato became more appealing to Europeans. But when I mention this is because white potato popularity was also established or promoted by the leaders, by the kings and other government officials. So that was a very similar case in terms of sweet potato. We have to talk about the China's population. China, of course is now the number two most populous nation. But of course, in the 20th century, early 20th century or late part of the. As a matter of fact, as early as the 18th century, China's population has already reached its highest point. I mean, it's already become the most populous populous nation. And there was a historian named Bing D. Ho who is a Chinese American working in the United States. He published a book about the importance of the New World crops, the sweet potato, corn and other food plants that helped grow Chinese population. I think my book somewhat modified his argument in the sense that China the population in early days never really passed 100 million. It was only in the 11th century that population in China passed briefly the 100 million mark. Before that there was only like 50, 60 million. So but in the end of the 18th century, China's population grow to 300 million. So you have like a major increase. And this increase, according to the historian whole, was due to the introduction of the high yield New World crops. But in my research, I found that as a matter of fact, the rice was still very, very important. So the recovery after the Mongol conquest of China in the 14th century, then China population gradually recovered. And this recover continued through the beginning of the 16th century due to the cultivation of rice mostly. So it was in the 17th century or 16th century, in the 17th century that gradually Chinese experienced some of the famines. And particularly in southern China that time they contacted, they had contacts with the sweet potato. And I found that su potido, of course, grow in the ground and it was immune to kind of bad weather and also grow its greens on top of the ground, right above the ground. The greens can be also eaten by humans as vegetables and also can feed the animals. So they discovered that sweep really can grow very quickly and the three months or four months at least. And even during its growing season you could dig them out and eat. So they found that it was a very important farming food. So this is Due to the population growth. And the rice production cannot catch the rate of growth of the population. So now the farmers first discover the use of the soy potato. A call was much later story, but at least in that period that farmers recommended to the officials. There you have like three major officials. They were all at like major governors of the provinces in China. They reported how. How good Supilo was. And even the emperor of the Qing dynasty, which is the last dynasty in China and the Qianlong emperor also received this recommendation and approved it. So Qianlong actually organized some scholars to publish a pamphlet being distributed among the officials saying that the better way for us to deal with the population growth was to use possibly superetero. So super little as a semi tropical food plant began due to those promotions, official promotions spread throughout China, even in Manchuria. Yeah, so this is, you know, officials discovered the importance of Toledo but due to the population pressure they had already experienced. So in that sense I modify Professor Hu's thesis in the sense that he basically saying that it was due to the introduction of the sweet potato. Therefore China population growth. To me I think it was the China population world. Then people began to find ways to address this population pressure. Now then they turn to the high yield, easy grow kind of a new world crops. Mainly the Sucaded. But later in the 19th century they began to grow corn, you know, also throughout the country.
- [32:27]
B
Yeah, that's really interesting to think about the kind of interplay of government policy and actual farmers being like hey guys, this is a thing, right? That's helpful to understand how those are interacting. What about in nearby Japan and Korea? Is the sweet potato getting a similar of reception there?
- [32:46]
C
Yeah, I mean I mentioned that Supro was a tropical as or semi tropical food plant. So for it to grow in northern part of China and Japan and Korea were somewhat similar in. In terms of latitude. The farmers had to find a way to sort of like keep its seeds that that is the roots over the winter season. And then the Chinese farmers discovered that how to deal with that and they, they. They developed this technology. Therefore silver can be grown in. In. In. In the temperate zones. So but still I think compared with the white potato, while potato was a main staple in Europe was because Europe of course low in a little bit mostly temperate zones. So I think the difference was that why superhero became an important staple in China was because China's latitude was lower than Europe. So both are high yield food plants. So that also affects the introduction of the superior to Japan and particularly the Korean peninsula. I will speak with Korea first Korean Peninsula Subaru was introduced, was spotted or you know, even recommended by the officials who learned the experience, learned about the food plant in China and recommend to the government. But the government actually did not take much interest in that. The reason possible was because first of all is the climate Korean Peninsula in North Korea now of course potato is more like the staple. So sweet potato is grown today in Jeju island which is in the southern part of the Korean peninsula. So the weather still plays a role. Super can grow in temperate zones. But of course in terms of yield, if you want a high yield, then the southern zones are better. So in that sense that Koreans still take sweeped not so much as a staple food, more like a snack. And the roasted potatoes were kind of popular on the streets of Korean cities during winter season and so on. So it's more like a snack. Japan is like a peching staple staple and the snack. The reason was that the Japanese discovered the superduce benefits that is being a very good fanning food. And during the Tokugawa period which is from 17th century to the 19th century Japan experienced several major famines due to bad weather and some other issues. And so rice failed in those fannings. So the the then the Japanese some of the Japanese took a strong interest. And because that time they also occupied Okinawa that time called Liuj they occur. But the the Okinawans got swiped from southern part of China earlier and its population grow. So that benefit was discovered by the the Japanese. So you have several Japanese figures, scholars and we can say, you know, botanists and began to take an interest in making recommendations to the Japanese government the Shogun of Tokugawa government. And they began to promote the the cultivation of the Soporedo. So in Japan. So pero during certain it was from the say the 18th century onward until the World War II years. Super was regarded as an important food source for Japanese during those those times that when Japan was fighting in the second World War as my book covered, that experienced a great shortage of food supply. So super became kind of integrated. So to this day the Japanese do think that super was the savior for for their hard life during those times.
- [37:24]
E
Well, the holidays have come and gone once again. But if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift. Well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now, you call it an early present for next year. What do you have to lose? Give it a try@mintmobile.com switch limited time.
- [37:44]
B
50% off regular price for new customers upfront payment required $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan taxes and fees. Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy. See terms. Yeah, definitely. Context makes a lot of sense for why certain foods become important in different times. But in fact, the thread I'd love to pick up from what you've described there is islands keep coming up, right? Jeju Island, Okinawa is obviously an island and that's not an accident, right? To go back to your original interest in historiography, you're doing some of that here, right? You have a chapter in the book that talks about Taiwan, Okinawa, Papua New guinea and Hawaii specifically together as sweet potato islands. So what is going on with that grouping in the chapter? It's not just about climate, right?
- [38:31]
C
Yeah, I mean this is kind of a hacking back to my original interest in histography. That is the way that we wrote history from 19th century onward tend to take the nation state perspective. Basically we have histories of say England, history of Germany is all like that. But again in the post war years, post second world war years that historians began to go beyond nation states to look at historical movements. And the environmental history as a school has made a lot of progress when they adopt this new perspective because environmental issues or problems often go beyond national borders. And food history also joined that trend. And so in other words, that in my research of the sweet potatoes or the history of the sweet potato, I found that we cannot just look at, you know, China or look at Japan or look at. I need to look at certain regions where. How the soil became integrated into its food system, but beyond the national borders, beyond the perspective of nation states. And this is now we call. It is one of the approaches of global history. This is how my subtitle called Global History of the subtitle Global History wants to go beyond the nation focused historically. So this is in my. In my. So that's why I created this chapter five we call the super islands subiro peoples. The reason that was that in these four places, Taiwan, Okinawa, Papua New guinea and Hawaii, these four places super little at least the war was the. The staple or is still the staple like in Papua, Papua New guinea, super remains the staple food. But in Hawaii, in Okinawa and also in Taiwan from the 1970s onward, super no longer is the staple anymore. But again they play a role. And the role that Supiro played was integrated closely with the at least the power of colonialism and the nationalism. Because these like in the case of Taiwan. Of course, we still have this issue whether Taiwan is part of China or not. Right. And the Taiwan used to be the colony of Japan from 19. From 1895, 1945. So Plato's history can show us the extent of colonialism. And Okinawa again shows this power of colonialism in the sense that Okinawa received the plant much earlier than Japan. But again, the Satsuma, one of the say, provinces of Japan conquered Okinawa. And so in Japanese today, super is called satsuma imo. Imo means yam or potatoes. So satsuma imo means, you know, kind of related to the. To the. To. To the. To the province that conquered Okinawa. So this is. Shows that colonialism has. Has a great way to. To. To. To. To. To be. To be exempt through the history of the Soporedo. And last case will be Hawaii. Right. Hawaii used to be an independent kingdom, but it was integrated into the United States in the late 19th century. So this is the way for me to look beyond the spread of food, beyond the national borders and as you.
- [43:02]
B
Said, very much speaks to current debates happening in a variety of academic disciplines. So very much kind of in the current and future looking academic side of things. And that's something you look at in the book as well with kind of the sweet potato more broadly. So can you maybe tell us some of the things currently happening with sweet potatoes that are interesting in the moment and might also be significant in the future?
- [43:27]
C
Yeah, that's, that's a. Has a good, good deal to do with the superfood kind of name that was being. Even the superfood, that name was not so scientific. But I think it's, it's a recent development. It's a way for people to call certain food or rediscover the benefits of certain food in a super and avocado, right. And say broccoli, those are considered like a superfood because they are particularly according to medical research, particularly good for human health. So but again, we have to somewhat go back to the image of the various images of submitted. Serpent, of course play a major role in population growth and it's easier grow. But on the other hand, I also argue that serpent, at least in the Asian experience and even In African experience, I.e. sOPEDU was considered poor people's food or poor man's food. The reason is that it was eaten by the poor people for their survival. So it does not have a kind of very kind of honorable, you know, image associated with the soapyro. But on the other hand, we also know that in North America, Soapiro made like a side dish or desserts or the staple was a fixture of Thanksgiving dinners and you know, major holiday dinners and so on. So they had two different images. So I think the superfood movement or identifying sopredo as a superfood in the world began in North America and also in Europe because I would say the supertado always had this kind of a good image because in western cuisine, right, basically you start with soup or salad, then with the main dish, then you often top, top it with, top it off with a dessert. So that means the sweet is, is considered a sort of like a luxury term. So supernoodle. After its introduction, Europe managed to retain this image. So but then in more recent scientific research and souped now was identified as a sort of like a superfood. So it began to be popular again. Right. As I said, Europeans like the sweets anyway, so. But other hand, due to the climate issues, sweet potato was not grown as, as widely as the white potato. But again, nowadays it's coming back. Another place that soup potato began to be appreciated more was is actually Japan. And in my book I should mention that because I as I said before, the Japanese appreciated the role superno helped done to deal with hardships during wartime and the post war hard times. So they always had this, you can say nostalgic, good kind of feelings towards the solteroid. So now they also began to develop different kind of sweet potato based food, even ice creams, different kind of desserts and so on. And now of course the souped little's healthy part play a major role in that as well In Africa. Subaru became more kind of appreciated in recent days, in recent decades, mainly because supernatural, particularly in the, the. In the orange fleshed supernatural variety that contains vitamin A. So it can deal with, can address this vitamin A deficiency in African population. Yeah, so this is now the government also promote this, this particular variety of the super among Africans. So that's good then I would say in the future superhero possibly will play even better, bigger role in helping the food supply to Africans. Because right now you have a lot of potentials. Super Little is high yield, of course, but its highest yield was achieved by Japanese farmers. It can be as much as 18 or 20 tons of per acre super little. But in Africa today the technology is not as much, is not as well. So the technology, the super little yield is very low right now is maybe only 4 or 5 tons. So if we have better technology being introduced to Africa, then it will certainly help the food supply to deal with the famines, starvations that we often see in certain parts of Africa. So I think the government is taking roles in promoting this food plant. To me, I think that points to a bright future for the silk world.
- [49:08]
B
Well, and it links back to almost what you were telling us centuries ago with Chinese officials under the Tianlong Emperor. So all sorts of interesting continents, continuities over time, even in different places. And I suppose what I'm interested in thinking about the future, definitely some things to pay attention to with the sweet potato. But going right back to the beginning of our conversation, I'm curious whether this research has already prompted a next project for you. The way that this book came out of your previous book on chopsticks. Do you have anything you're currently working on you want to give us a brief sneak preview of?
- [49:45]
C
Good. I. I couldn't. Well, there's a little story because after my chopstick work and actually recently last year, there was a literary agent from Curtis Brown. I don't know whether you know about this agency. There's a person there and contact me and invited me to submitted a proposal to write a book about Chinese history from the lens of food. So and I accepted that. As a matter of fact, I developed a proposal that is because, I mean, right, right now, if we look at the market, there are a lot of books about Chinese food because Chinese food being very popular now is almost like, you know, with, with the takeouts and, and so on. So fast food and so on and it had become very popular. So you have many books, academic books and the popular books on the Chinese food. There are of course also a lot of books on Chinese history, but there was still not the combination. So I think the person in the Huttis Brown agency invitation to me I think is very good and I might be the right person to work on that because potato and the chopsticks were both like very important food phenomena right in the history of China. So I'm now working on that and hopefully that book can also generate some interest among our readers.
- [51:25]
B
Well, that is, to be honest, kind of what I was intrigued by in asking that question. And it sounds like I was right that your next project is coming out of this one and your previous one. So always interesting when that happens. And of course for listeners who want to learn more, they can read the book we've been discussing titled Staple to A Global History of the Sweet Potato, published by Columbia University Press in 2025. Edward, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [51:54]
C
The pleasure is mine. It's great to talk with you about my new book and also my future book writing projects.
- [52:03]
B
Thanks, Sam.