North Carolina is known for celebrating many odd and obscure things. For instance, our great state has festivals glorifying everything from pickles to blueberries, from crabs to mules, and in this case: both sweet potatoes and yams. Are you following along – sweet potatoes and yams are two separate entities!
In the United States, yams are really just another name for a sweet potato. However, a true yam is usually imported to America from the Caribbean. When cooked, yams are a soft, sweet, orange concoction. I know what you’re thinking – this sounds just like a sweet potato! The US Department of Agriculture requires that the label “yam” always be accompanied by “sweet potato” to avoid the confusion because they are generally used interchangeably.
North Carolina is known for specializing in this crop of ‘related-vegetables’. The sweet potato is a native crop in North Carolina and is primarily grown in the coastal plain area of the state. We are also recognized for our crops in tobacco, cotton, blueberries, and peanuts.
But, why should we celebrate a vegetable? The answer is, why not! October 22nd and 23rd, in Tabor City, N.C., the NC Yam Festival celebrates its agricultural heritage by saluting the yam. From 1947 until 1961, the little border town of Tabor City played host to one of North Carolina’s largest festivals. Since 1947 the Carolina Yam Festival has been attracting as many as 15,000 visitors each year, to this tiny community of less and 2,000. The following weekend, in Snow Hill, N.C., Greene County will be celebrating the vegetable at the 4th annual N.C. Sweet Potato Festival.
Each event is sure to be a good time, with the Sweet Potato festival having entertainment such as Jason Michael Carroll at this years’ event. But, if you look at it like these North Carolina growers do, more is always better – so check out both festivals!
If you are not craving a sweet potato/yam after all of this, hopefully this will at least ease your mind: the main difference in these two vegetables is that their individual festivals are held on different weekends in October and are about 2.5 hours away from each other! These festivals combined don’t need any marketing, they rely on word of mouth to promote these fantastic events for people of all ages to have a yam good time!
– Michela Noreski, Jordan Hill, Ashley Nelson
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