[Sca-cooks] Sweet Potatoes in the Islamic World

[Terry Decker]

Several years ago, while delivering one of my standard and oft-revised 
lectures on potatoes and sweet potatoes, I was asked about when and where 
sweet potatoes entered the Islamic world.  I believe that sweet potatoes 
came to al-Islam through three points of contact; the Portuguese slave trade 
into West Africa, the Venetian spice trade into Alexandria, and the 
Portuguese spice trade into Goa.  Proof is a little hard to come by, but 
there is evidence that the sweet potato was in cultivation in India at the 
end of the 16th Century.

Between 1583 and 1589, Jan Huygen van Linschoten was resident in Goa.  In 
1596, he published his "Travels."  Here is his comment:

"There grow in India many Iniamos and Batatas.  These Iniamos, are as bigge 
as a yelow root, but somewhat thicker and full of knots, abd as thicke on 
the one place, as in the other, they grow under the earth like earth Nuts, 
and of a Dun colour, and white within like earth Nuts, but not so sweete.

"Iniamos were this yeare brought hether out of Guinea, as bigge as a mans 
legge, and all of a like thicknesse, the outward part is Dun coloured, 
within verie white, rosted or sodden they are verie pleasant of taste, and 
[one of] the principal meat[es] of the Black [Moores].

"The Batatas are somewhat red of colour, and of fashion almost like the 
Iniamos, but sweeter, of taste, like an earth Nut.  These two fruits are 
verie plentifull, specially Iniamos, which is as common and necessarie a 
meate as the Figgs, they eate them for the most part rosted, and use them 
commonly for the last service on the boorde, they sieth them likewise in 
another sort for porrage, and sieth them with flesh like Colwortes or 
Turnops, the like doe they with Batatas."

Linschoten, Jan Huygen van, The Voyage of John Huyghen Van Linschoten to the 
East Indies Vol. II from the Old English translation of 1598;  The Hakluyt 
Society, London, 1885.


Sir George Watt in A Dictionary of the Economic Products of India (1890) 
discounts Linschoten's Batatas as another yam largely because he was of the 
opinion they couldn't have reached India so quickly.  The Iniamos described 
are definitely a member of the Diescorea, but the Batata is more 
questionable.  While Linscoten's Batata might be a purple yam (D. alata), 
the description is, in my opinion, more consistent with the purplish red 
sweet potato that is modernly found in most parts of Asia.  As for the time 
needed to spread the sweet potato, given that the sweet potato was adopted 
as a food stuff early after 1492, was in cultivation in Spain, the Canary 
Islands and the Azores by mid-century, that the Portuguese had held Goa 
since 1510, and that the Portuguese voyages to India often passed through 
the Canaries, it is very possible that the sweet potato was in Goa well 
before Linschoten.

In November, 1617, Edward Terry, chaplain to Sir Thomas Roe, Ambassador to 
the Great Mogul, records that at a banquet given by Asaf Khan, were served 
"potatoes excellently well dressed..."  (Terry, Edward, A Voyage to East 
India...reprinted from the edition of 1655; J. Wilkie, London, 1777.)

Sir George Watt is of the opinion that this is the first mention of the 
ordinary potato in connection with India.  This opinion ignores the same 
argument he used about the sweet potato, that there had not been enough time 
for the white potato to reach India and ignores the problem that the term 
potato was being used interchangeably for both Solanum and Ipomea.

Since the sweet potato had 40 to 50 more years than the white potato to 
reach India, it is more likely Terry was referring to sweet potatoes, which 
provides more credence that Linschoten's Batata was a sweet potato rather 
than a yam.

Bear