Camotes En Dulce Con Guayaba

This recipe is for a Mexican non-dairy dessert of sweet potato with guava fruit.  This humble vegetable has a very noble historical fact.  It averted famine in China.

After 1492 indigenous foods of the Americas like sweet potato, corn, tomato, and chile brought more wealth to Europeans than gold and silver, increased their caloric intakes and created a cornucopia of fusion foods.  

One example of the impact of foods of the Americas is how sweet potato mitigated famines in China from 1550-1750.  During this period massive climate change occurred in the northern hemisphere.  This geothermal anatomy is referred as the “Little Ice Age”.  Europe and Asia suffered extremely snowy and icy winters.

In China, this caused massive flooding, erosion, devastating the rice fields and looming famine.  In the 16th century China had ¼ of the worlds population and only had a 12th of the worlds farmland.  China has always had a lot people and little land to feed them. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers were always prone to flooding.washing out rice patties resulting in famine.

American crops arrive and the Chinese people were quick to adapt American indigenous foods.  Sweet potato, corn and chile was farmed outside the river prone zones where nothing else could grow thus lessening the dependence on rice for survival.

Sweet potato averted famine; people took to liking it and prepared in many forms.  They baked, boiled, deep fried it, and ground into flour for noodles.  They even made a sweet wine from sweet potato.  

Let’s get started with this Mexican dessert.  

Ingredients

Serves 6

¾ lb piloncillo, broken into chunks

1 cup fresh orange juice

Peel of 1 orange, white pith removed, chopped

½ cup water or (guava syrup – see following item of canned wedges)

2 lbs camote (sweet potatoes sometimes labeled Yams), peeled and cut into 2 inch chunks. 

1 15 oz can guava wedges in syrup drained (seeds edible but can be                 scooped out)

1 3″ stick of cinnamon

1 1″ piece of ginger, peeled and chopped

Preparation

• Heat the piloncillo, orange juice, and ½ cup water in a 6-qt saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring often, until dissolved, 10 minutes.

• Add the sweet potatoes, cinnamon, ginger, and orange peel.  Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 30m minutes.

• Remove lid from saucepan, add the guava, and cook until the sweet potatoes are tender and the liquid is reduced to a syrupy consistency, 30 minutes.

Notes:

Guava seeds are edible so if you don’t want to eat the seeds scoop them out before cooking.   The source of history is by author Charles G. Mann, Publisher is Alfred A. Knoff, 2011.

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