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Preserve

Keeping Sweet Potatoes

A method for storing sweet potatoes using corn stalks, straw, boards, and dirt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pine and sweet potato share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Keeping Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Build the base

  1. Lay corn stalks thickly on a smooth surface.

  2. Cross-lay with another layer of stalks.

  3. Spread 4 inches of pine straw over the stalks.

  4. Nail together 4 planks to form a hollow.

  5. Bore holes in each side of the hollow.

  6. Stand the hollow on end in the center of the straw.

Pack the potatoes

  1. Pile the sweet potatoes around the hollow.

  2. Cover the potatoes with a layer of straw and corn stalks.

  3. Set the covered potatoes on ends.

  4. Cover the stalks with dirt.

Protect the store

  1. Form a ditch to divert water from the potatoes.

  2. Ensure the top ends of the boards extend above the bank.

  3. Leave the top open until rain or cold weather arrives.

  4. Cover with a plank until the weather moderates.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pine + sweet potatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Corn + sweet potatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together153 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Corn + pinetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together39 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the sweet potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, pine):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Sweet potatothe original
  4. Eggplantfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, pine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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