by Khadijat Bello

”Believe it or not, my dad taught me how to know a good and tasty yam just from the appearance and since then, I’ve hardly bought a yam that wasn’t superb”

Yams are very tricky to shop for. This is because you can hardly tell from looking at the outside, if a yam is good. Many yams look attractive but on cooking them, you find they are almost inedible.

Believe it or not, my dad taught me how to know a good and tasty yam just from the appearance and since then, I’ve hardly bought a yam that wasn’t superb. Here are a few ways to know if a tuber of yam will be good in your pot:

1. A good yam will not have any holes or rotting parts; this is an obvious one. If a yam is covered with holes and funny black marks, it is very unlikely that it will taste good. This of course does not include the funny marks yams get, from rough handling for example cutlass marks.

2. It should not have any roots. A tuber of yam that has roots growing out of it, has already begun a new phase of life. It has said goodbye to being food; so it is very unlikely to taste good.

3. It should have some “hair”. There are these hair-like growths that protrude from yams. A good yam will usually have a little of this “hair”.

4. It should have white spots. There are some faint white spots that usually appear on yams. A good yam will have these white spots.

5. It should not be a “new” yam. New yams are fresh from the harvest and most of them are still filled with fluid. This is the type of yam that is slimy like water yam; and breaks into pieces very quickly, no matter how little you cook it. It’s better to wait a little for the yams to dry but unfortunately, I don’t know how to tell a new yam just by looking at it.

These tips might seem simple and strange, but I have applied these rules and they have worked for me. My dad is an Agricultural Biologist so if you won’t take my word for it, at least you can take his.

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Khadijat Bello is a writer with big dreams. She believes that life is a journey, not a destination.

30 Days, 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians from across the world to share their stories and experiences – creating a meeting point where our common humanity is explored.

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija