Yaki-imo Roasted Sweet Potato
A sweet, healthy and nostalgic treat
Hot yaki-imo roasted sweet potato is Japan’s iconic cold-weather snack. After being introduced to Japan in the seventeenth century, sweet potatoes were being cultivated as a resilient crop in many regions across the country by the eighteenth century. It did not take long for yaki-imo—nutritious, filling and tasty—to become the popular treat it remains today.
Cooking methods for preparing roasted sweet potatoes evolved from steam-roasting in earthenware ovens or pots to stone-roasting, following the Second World War. In winter, it was common to see street peddlers trundling stone-filled iron-box stoves on carts and hear their distinctive tuneful call of hot stone-roasted yaki-imo for sale. Until the 1970s, there were many such peddlers; today, that enticing aroma of fresh-roasted yaki-imo wafts behind small trucks that prowl the streets—accompanied by recorded versions of the peddler’s old familiar voice.
For many in Japan, this sweet, smoky aroma and distinctive yaki-imo call evoke the nostalgic essence of winter. But that perception is being challenged, thanks to innovative cooking technologies, new potato varieties and creative dishes. While people once could only buy yaki-imo from roaming vendors in colder weather, it is now sold in supermarkets and convenience stores, freshly roasted in-store using special electric ovens. It can even be made at home in sleek portable roasters.
Agriculturally, selective sweet potato breeding has introduced new varieties to the market, each with unique sweetness, color and texture. The Beniharuka, for example, is sticky, rich and sweet as honey when roasted, whereas the Silk Sweet has a light, fluffy texture with a more subtle sweetness. A growing number of shops specializing in roasted sweet potatoes feature these new varieties topped with ice cream, butter or cream cheese, or in novel recipes like puddings, frozen shakes, shaved ice or yaki-imo salad—to name only a few. And while hot yaki-imo on a cold day is still one of Japan’s simple pleasures, now, hot or cold, consumers can enjoy sweet potato sweets regardless of the season.
