Last week I cooked sweet potato, rosemary and garlic risotto from a recipe I found on the office printer. Aside from the patronising tone (you'd never get Delia shouting "DON'T BURN THE PAN HERE") it was a winner. Thanks, anonymous work colleague.
I am on something of a quest for the perfect risotto (suggestions welcome), and the addition of a roasted root vegetable is a recent discovery for me: I'd made Jamie Oliver's butternut squash risotto a couple of times, but I thought this recipe was much more delicious. But then I would say that - I love sweet potatoes.
My wife-to-be introduced me to the sweet potato about five years ago, as a mash accompaniment to fish. I was smitten - and not just with the chef. It was also a favourite with our stepson when he was small.
The day after my risotto triumph it was reported that due to our old friend "popular demand" - UK sales of sweet potatoes have risen 50% in the last two years - Marks & Spencer is selling the first mass-produced British-grown sweet potatoes. They're being grown near Newmarket, and they'll cost £1.49 for 600g.
Should we welcome the arrival into our fields of this lurid-coloured root? It's something of a staple in the US, where it's part of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Our American cousins aren't always celebrated in Europe for their good taste in food, but they're certainly inventive - frozen sweet potato cheesecake on a stick, anyone?
I say there is room on the British plate for a brash new root. The granddaddy of root veg in Britain, the potato, was the advance party. It's such a key part of our national diet that it's hard to imagine life without it. But it only arrived in the UK via Spain from its native Peru in the 16th century. A more recent arrival is the pumpkin, but I remain as unconvinced by its culinary merits as I am by the cultural value of Halloween. The sweet potato is an altogether superior ingredient.
Worryingly for those of us who seek to cut down on our carbon emissions, the sweet potato is native to the tropics, and doesn't tolerate frost. I'm not a good enough gardener to know if this means M&S's efforts are doomed - or whether the future's orange.
