Sweet Potato Time

You can hear it. You can smell it in the air. It's getting cold, and that means the sweet potato truck is back.

The truck has a fire in its belly, so to speak. You can see the glow of burning wood through the side of the truck and smell the wood smoke mixed with the aroma of roasted sweet potato. The driver cruises through the neighborhood, chanting the vendor's trademark song: Yaki-imo! Ishi-yaki-imo!

Years ago, I had no idea what ishi-yaki-imo was. I knew ishi meant stones, and could see the hot stones lining the bed of the wooden pushcarts that were the forerunners of today's sweet potato trucks. I surmised that the peddler's cart belching wood smoke parked outside the train station from mid-November until spring was selling primitive hand warmers: charcoal-heated rocks.

One very cold evening on my way home from work, I lined up with the crowd surrounding the ishi-yaki-imo cart, plunked down a coin, and got a fold of old newspaper with something very hot wrapped inside. I held the package in both hands and walked home, enjoying the warmth of the stones insulated by the newspaper.

Once inside, I left my handwarmer on the counter and forgot about it. When my husband got home some time later, he saw the newspaper and instantly knew what it was.

"Oboy! Yaki-imo!"

I thought his enthusiasm was a little out of synch, since he had already finished the long, cold walk home and didn't need a handwarmer.

"Yep," I replied. "It was so cold I bought a yaki-imo. Do I have to return it now that I'm done with it?"

"Return it!" he said. "You're supposed to eat it!"

That's when I learned the melodious ishi-yaki-imo chant wasn't about the hot stones, it was about the sweet potatoes slowly roasting in a bed of rock heated over charcoal.