Thanksgiving Facts
The coolest thing, from a culinary arts standpoint, about holidays is that they bring up an interesting array of topics and questions. There are a few that I’ve googled today. Let’s start with why I’ve been finding myself yawning constantly ever since about an hour into the turkey cooking process. I googled around and found several articles explaining why one might feel sleepy after a Thanksgiving meal that includes turkey. Turkey has Tryptophan, an essential amino acid that the human body cannot produce. Back in the 1980’s there were some doctors and health experts telling people to take massive amounts of Tryptophan in a pill form to combat insomnia. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned tryptophan supplements in 1990 because of an outbreak of eosinophilia-myalgia, a syndrome that causes muscle pain and even death. The reason one gets tired from consuming tryptophan is that in small doses on an empty stomach it can cause the body to produce more serotonin and cause a tired effect which can lead to sleep. This didn’t get me any closer to my answer however to why I’m feeling tired from the smell of a cooking turkey. I googled a bit more and was about to give up on this when it hit me all at once and the smoke alarm sounded in my study. I got up to turn it off and realized that all my yawning wasn’t from the smell of the turkey but was from oxygen deprivation. Lack of oxygen to the brain will cause yawning and produce a tiring effect! Holy lord, ok so on to the next question.
Sweet potatoes and Yams. What are they and what is the difference. Well, in the history of LaVelle thanksgivings past the difference was simple. Last year we had Candied Yams, this year we’re having candied sweet potatoes. This morning I was almost positive that the difference between these two vegetables was small. Maybe just the color was the differnce? Boy was I wrong.
Checking on a couple of different university websites I quicly found a helpful table to let me know the differences in the two. From a culinary aspect Vicky said that the sweet potatoes have been a godsend compared to preparing the yams last year. Sweet potatoes have a thin flat skin that is easy to strip off and an equally easy moist interior to cut thorugh. Yams are a dry, starchy Tuber that have been present on this planet since about 50,ooo B.C. The sweet potato it ends up is a much older root vegetable with links to prehistoric times. The sweet potato is normally rich in Vitamin A whereas the starchy Yam is pretty much void of nutritional value. The sweet potato not only posesses a clever name but it is also a much sweeter tasting veggie than the Yam. Even the origin of these to vegetables differs in that sweet potatos hail from the United States while yams come from the caribbean. So it seems that the only thing yams and sweet potatoes have in common are their similiar position in a traditional Thanksgiving Day meal.