Ralph Ellison, Street Venders, and Southern Identity

Baked and Buttered Yam, related links and recipes below 

As part of our continuing series on street food we turn to Ralph Ellison's classic 1952 novel Invisible Man which won the American book award that year. Ellison's description of a southern street vendor in 1930s Harlem is masterful for how it describes food as a regional identifier. The protagonist, a migrant from the South, spots an “old man warming his hands against the side of an odd looking wagon, from which a stove pipe reeled off a thin spiral of smoke that drifted the odor of baking yams.” The delicious odor triggers a  memory for the protagonist of a time when his southern family had the custom of baking yams in the family fire place and sending him to school with one as part of his lunch. “Got yo’ hot, baked Car’lina yam” he called ….“How much are your yams?” I said, suddenly hungry. “They ten cents and they sweet . . . real, sweet, yaller yams. How many?” “One,” I said. “if they’re that good, one should be enough.”  The street vendor then opens the door of a makeshift oven on his wagon where “yams, some bubbling with syrup, lay on a wire rack above glowing coals.” He takes one out and places it in a brown paper bag. “Go ahead and break it” says the vender, “and I'll give you some butter since you  gon’ eat it right here” The protagonist takes the hot yam out of the bag brakes it open and takes in the smell of its sugary pulp as the street vender pours a spoonful of melted butter over it. For good measure the vender retorts, if that ain’t the sweetest yam and the “best eating you had in a long tim I’ll give you your money back.” The protagonist bites into the yam and is overcome “with such a surge of homesickness” that he turns away to control his emotions. 

Yam and Sweet Potato History and Recipes: [Watch 7 min 35 sec] http://www.foodasalens.com/2012/04/genealogy-of-easter-foods-part-3.html

Jessica Harris, Ted Lee, and John T. Edge on Southern Food in New York:[Listen 55 min 6 sec] http://culture.wnyc.org/articles/talk-me/2010/apr/16/talk-me-down-home-food-north/

Street Venders Series with Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Street+Venders