The jingle for roasted sweet potatoes rhymes as follows:

The sweet potatoes are roasted well and their aroma spreads far and wide. Golden and burnt on the outside, soft and waxy on the inside. Put it in your mouth and chew it, the sweet taste will last. The aftertaste is endless, the roasted sweet potato is the best.

Detailed introduction of sweet potato:

Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.), with a cancer inhibition rate of 98.7%, is a perennial herbaceous vine of the genus Tiger Palm of the Convolvulaceae family. Plants with milky juices. The roots are white, red or yellow; the stems have adventitious roots; the leaves are broadly oval or oval and heart-shaped, and the leaf colors include dark green, yellow-green, purple-green, etc.

The front end is tapering, and the base is heart-shaped or nearly truncate; the corolla is pink, white, lilac or purple, bell-shaped or funnel-shaped, hairless; the chrysanthemum fruit is oval or oblate. ; Since sweet potatoes are cross-pollinated, self-pollination often does not produce fruit, so sometimes only flowers are seen but no fruit.

Sweet potato is native to South America and the Greater and Lesser Antilles. It is now widely cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions around the world, but it has also been successfully cultivated in some northern regions such as Heilongjiang Province. It is commonly cultivated in most areas of China. Sweet potatoes are highly adaptable, preferring warmth and light but are not frost tolerant. They are drought and alkali tolerant and are suitable for planting in fertile and well-drained sandy soil. They are a crop that is easy to maintain.

History of Botany:

Sweet potatoes were first planted in Mexico and Colombia in central America. They were brought to the Philippines and other countries by the Spanish for cultivation. Sweet potatoes were first introduced to China around the late Ming Dynasty. During the Wanli period, it entered China through three routes - Yunnan, Guangdong, and Fujian.

It is generally believed that sweet potatoes were introduced to China during the Ming Dynasty. The first person to introduce sweet potatoes to China was Chen Yi. According to historical records, Chen Yi was a native of Beizha, Humen, Dongguan, Guangdong. He lived in the eighth year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1580). ), he wore common clothes and carried a parcel on his shoulders, and took a friend's merchant ship from Humen to Annan (today's Vietnam).

After arriving in Annan, the local chief served them an official dish when they received them. This dish is sweet and soft. In addition to being very delicious, it can also satisfy hunger. This is sweet potato. From then on, Chen Yi paid special attention to the growth habits and cultivation methods of sweet potatoes. Two years later, in 1582, he risked his own life, bribed the chieftains, hid the potato seeds in a bronze drum, and wanted to secretly bring them back home.

Chen Yi purchased 35 acres of land in front of his grandfather’s grave on the hillside of Xiaojie Mountain in Jinzhou, Humen, and began planting sweet potatoes on a large scale. After the successful harvest, he decided to spread this food widely and chose his longevity point next to the sweet potato field to stay with the sweet potatoes forever. As the first person to introduce sweet potatoes in China, Chen Yi made great contributions to opening up food sources for our country.