Variation on a theme of “Patates malgaches”

The other day Charles the office guard (who, by the way, is now guarding during the day; he and the other guard switch off every week who guards at night and who guards during the day) said he had some “patates malgaches” for us to buy, since we had liked the first ones he brought us so much (see earlier post about “patates malgaches” and manioc). We bought a bag of them from him, uncooked. While the first ones we tried had been purple on the outside (although Charles called them “les rouges”, whitish on the inside, these were “les jaunes,” pale brown on the outside, yellow on the inside.
Hungry, we went back to our house and immediately cooked them for lunch. Or rather, I washed them in chlorine, then cooked them for lunch. Sure enough, they tasted just like “les rouges” – that is to say, delicious.
Francesca has been frying regular potatoes lately, which we bought last week, in addition to plantains, so when she went to do it again the other night, I proposed we try to fry the sweet “patates malgaches” in the hopes of achieving something like a sweet potato fry. Never having fried anything in my life (no pot of boiling oil has ever been seen in the Shaw-Champion home in my twenty years of life!), I left this to Francesca. She peeled and sliced them (uncooked) with some difficulty – they seem harder and tougher than regular potatoes, very fibrous at the ends. But they fry up just fine – yum!

More Malagasy Cuisine: “Patates malgaches” et manioc

We’ve been teaching after-hours English lessons to Charles, one of the office guards, and his wife every night when we stop by to use the internet after dinner. To thank us, the couple has taken it upon themselves to resolve the mystery of the unidentifiable root vegetables I’ve been seeing at the market. On Sunday Charles showed up on our doorstep with a steaming plate of what looked like long whole purple yams. He called them “patates malgaches.” Francesca immediately got very excited; she recognized them as what she grew up with in Haiti, calling them “Haitian yams.” Sure enough, despite their color they tasted like the sweet brown-skinned yellowy-orange yams – the candied ones of American Thanksgiving with marshmellow topping – that I knew.
Yesterday (Monday) around lunchtime Charles was back again, this time with a bowl of long, pale, stringy-looking starchy vegetables, which he called “manioc” [see picture, double-click on enlarge]. I was familiar with the name, and we gratefully accepted his offering. Manioc proved to be rather bland, but piping hot they were satisfying and filling. Last night while on the phone with Robin he pointed out that I had already tried manioc – it’s what Cubans call “yuca,” and we had had it in March at “Cuba” restaurant in New York City. Then, it had been fried in oil and flavored with garlic, so I hadn’t recognized it here in Madagascar! Upon further research, it seems that certain crops are quite popular across the globe in tropical and/or island nations, with manioc/yuca being a prime example!