The sweet potato is native to the tropical regions of South America in what is present-day Ecuador. Of the approximately 50 genera and more than 1,000 species of Convolvulaceae, I. batatas is the only crop plant of major importance—some others are used locally (e.g., I. aquatica "kangkong" as a green vegetable), but many are poisonous. The genus Ipomoea that contains the sweet potato also includes several garden flowers called morning glories, but that term is not usually extended to I. batatas. Some cultivars of I. batatas are grown as ornamental plants under the name tuberous morning glory, and used in a horticultural context. Sweet potatoes can also be called yams in North America. When soft varieties were first grown commercially there, there was a need to differentiate between the two. Enslaved Africans had already been calling the 'soft' sweet potatoes 'yams' because they resembled the unrelated yams in Africa. Thus, 'soft' sweet potatoes were referred to as 'yams' to distinguish them from the 'firm' varieties.

The plant is an herbaceous perennial vine, bearing alternate triangle-shaped or palmately lobed leaves and medium-sized sympetalous flowers. The stems are usually crawling on the ground and form adventitious roots at the nodes. The leaves are screwed along the stems. The leaf stalk is 13 to 51 centimetres (5 to 20 inches) long. The leaf blades are very variable, 5 to 13 cm (2 to 5 in) long, the shape is heart-, kidney- to egg-shaped, rounded or triangular and spear-shaped, the edge can be entire, toothed or often three to seven times lobed, cut or divided. Most of the leaf surfaces are bare, rarely hairy, and the tip is rounded to pointed. The leaves are mostly green in color, but the accumulation of anthocyanins, especially along the leaf veins, can make them purple. Depending on the variety, the total length of a stem can be between 0.5 and 4 metres (1+1⁄2 and 13 feet). Some cultivars also form shoots up to 16 m (52 ft) in length. However, these do not form underground storage organs.

The sweet potato originates in South America in what is present-day Ecuador. The domestication of sweet potato occurred in either Central or South America. In Central America, domesticated sweet potatoes were present at least 5,000 years ago, with the origin of I. batatas possibly between the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico and the mouth of the Orinoco River in Venezuela. The cultigen was most likely spread by local people to the Caribbean and South America by 2500 BCE

Before the arrival of Europeans to the Americas, sweet potato was grown in Polynesia, generally spread by vine cuttings rather than by seeds. Sweet potato has been radiocarbon-dated in the Cook Islands to 1210–1400 CE. A common hypothesis is that a vine cutting was brought to central Polynesia by Polynesians who had traveled to South America and back, and spread from there across Polynesia to Easter Island, Hawaii and New Zealand. Genetic similarities have been found between Polynesian peoples and indigenous Americans including the Zenú, a people inhabiting the Pacific coast of present-day Colombia, indicating that Polynesians could have visited South America and taken sweet potatoes prior to European contact. Dutch linguists and specialists in Amerindian languages Willem Adelaar and Pieter Muysken have suggested that the word for sweet potato is shared by Polynesian languages and languages of South America: Proto-Polynesian *kumala (compare Rapa Nui kumara, Hawaiian ʻuala, Māori kūmara) may be connected with Quechua and Aymara k'umar ~ k'umara. Adelaar and Muysken assert that the similarity in the word for sweet potato is proof of either incidental contact or sporadic contact between the Central Andes and Polynesia.



The sweet potato arrived in Europe with the Columbian exchange. It is recorded, for example, in Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book, compiled in England in 1604.

Sweet potatoes were first introduced to the Philippines during the Spanish colonial period (1521–1898) via the Manila galleons, along with other New World crops. It was introduced to the Fujian of China in about 1594 from Luzon, in response to a major crop failure. The growing of sweet potatoes was encouraged by the Governor Chin Hsüeh-tseng (Jin Xuezeng).

Sweet potatoes were also introduced to the Ryukyu Kingdom, present-day Okinawa, Japan, in the early 1600s by the Portuguese. Sweet potatoes became a staple in Japan because they were important in preventing famine when rice harvests were poor. Aoki Konyō helped popularize the cultivation of the sweet potato in Japan, and the Tokugawa bakufu sponsored, published, and disseminated a vernacular Japanese translation of his research monograph on sweet potatoes to encourage their growth more broadly. Sweet potatoes were planted in Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshimune's private garden. It was first introduced to Korea in 1764. Kang P'il-ri and Yi Kwang-ryŏ embarked on a project to grow sweet potatoes in Seoul in 1766, using the knowledge of Japanese cultivators they learned in Tongnae starting in 1764. The project succeeded for a year but ultimately failed in winter 1767 after Kang's unexpected death.

Although the sweet potato is not closely related botanically to the common potato, they have a shared etymology. The first Europeans to taste sweet potatoes were members of Christopher Columbus's expedition in 1492. Later explorers found many cultivars under an assortment of local names, but the name which stayed was the indigenous Taíno name of batata. The Spanish combined this with the Quechua word for potato, papa, to create the word patata for the common potato.

Though the sweet potato is also called batata (בטטה‎) in Hebrew, this is not a direct loan of the Taíno word. Rather, the Spanish patata was loaned into Arabic as batata (بطاطا‎), owing to the lack of a /p/ sound in Arabic, while the sweet potato was called batata ḥilwa (بطاطا حلوة‎); literally ('sweet potato'). The Arabic batata was loaned into Hebrew as designating the sweet potato only, as Hebrew had its own word for the common potato, תפוח אדמה‎ (tapuakh adama, literally 'earth apple'; compare French pomme de terre)

Sweet potato dishes need to be classified into those that use the tubers (they are often cooked in a similar manner to potao) and those that use sweet potato greens (young leaves and shoots).

The alphabetical list of all the sweet potato-based recipes on this site follows, (limited to 100 recipes per page). There are 138 recipes in total:

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Ackee and Callaloo Bake      Origin: Jamaica	Compota de Uvas con Crujiente de Boniato (Grape Compote with Crispy Sweet Potato)      Origin: Spain	Ketoun (Guinean Root Vegetable Porridge)      Origin: Guinea
Air Fryer Sweet Potato Wedges      Origin: Britain	Conkies      Origin: Bahamas	Kittitian Style Conkies      Origin: Saint Kitts
Ajiaco Criollo (Cuban Creole Stew)      Origin: Cuba	Cornish Crab Cakes      Origin: Britain	Krill Sweet Potato Cakes      Origin: Fusion
Antiguan Curried King Prawns      Origin: Antigua	Cozido à Madeirense      Origin: Portugal	Lentil Curry with Japanese Knotweed and Sweet Potatoes      Origin: Fusion
Aruba Chicken      Origin: Aruba	Creamed Sweet Potatoes with Carrots and Turnips      Origin: American	Lentil Curry with Rhubarb and Sweet Potatoes      Origin: Fusion
Ashanti Chicken      Origin: Ghana	Curried Sweet Potato Soup      Origin: New Zealand	Lobsgows Gorllewin Affrica (West African Lobscouse)      Origin: Welsh
Aubergine, Sweet Potato and Chickpea Balti      Origin: South Africa	Curry de Poulet aux Bananes Plantain (Chicken and Plantain Curry)      Origin: Cote dIvoire	Maafe (Meat Peanut Stew)      Origin: Mali
Banana Stobá (Stewed Plantains)      Origin: Curacao	Daraba      Origin: Chad	Mackerel Burger with Sweet Potato Chips      Origin: Fusion
Barbecue Baharat Lamb Chops with Vegetable Salad      Origin: Australia	Deep Fried Sweet Potato Balls      Origin: India	Mafé      Origin: Senegal
Beef Braised in Rooibos Tea with Sweet Potatoes      Origin: South Africa	Domoda II      Origin: Gambia	mafè tatou nènn (Naked Peanut Stew)      Origin: Mali
Beef Curry with Sweet Potato Noodles      Origin: Fusion	Ducana      Origin: Antigua	Maffe aux Legumes Arachide (Beef or Lamb in Peanut Butter)      Origin: Senegal
Belizean Sweet Potato Pone      Origin: Belize	Ducana      Origin: Saint Vincent	Maffi Hakko Bangtura (Sweet Potato Leaf Sauce)      Origin: Guinea
Beninese Beef Stew      Origin: Benin	Duckna      Origin: Montserrat	Marrakech Vegetable Curry      Origin: Morocco
Beninese Goat Stew      Origin: Benin	Ducuna      Origin: Anguilla	Mbatata Biscuits (Sweet Potato Biscuits)      Origin: Malawi
Bolo do Caco      Origin: Portugal	Fini N'Gomi (Fonio Fritters)      Origin: Mali	Mexican-style Mackerel and Rice      Origin: Fusion
Bolo do Caco com Chouriço (Madeira Island Bread Stuffed with Chouriço)      Origin: Portugal	Futari (Sweet Potato and Pumpkin in Coconut Milk)      Origin: Tanzania	Microwave Sweet Potatoes      Origin: Britain
Boulettes de Viande (Beef Meatballs)      Origin: Cameroon	Futari (Sweet-potatoes Namibian Style)      Origin: Namibia	Ojojo Meat Balls      Origin: Nigeria
Bufuke with Onion Sauce      Origin: Uganda	Gâteau des patates douces (Sweet-potato Cake)      Origin: Saint-Martin	Oven-roasted Grey Snapper with Caribbean Sauce      Origin: Turks Caicos
Cabri aux Gombos et Patates Douces (Goat with Okra and Sweet Potatoes)      Origin: Senegal	Gestowe Soetpatats (Slow-cooked Sweet Potatoes)      Origin: South Africa	Patates Douces Frites (Guinean Fried Sweet Potatoes)      Origin: Guinea
Cachupa Rica      Origin: Cape Verde	Gestowe Soetpatats (Slow-cooked Sweet Potatoes)      Origin: South Africa	Pemahun      Origin: Sierra Leone
Cachupa Rica      Origin: Cape Verde	Goan-style Mealworm and Chickpea Curry      Origin: Fusion	Pepperpot      Origin: Antigua
Caldo de Peixe (Cape Verdean Fish Soup)      Origin: Cape Verde	Golabjamoun (Sweet Potato Cakes)      Origin: Zambia	Pickle Chicken Curry      Origin: India
Calulu Carne Seca (Dried Meat Calulu)      Origin: Angola	Gratin de pommes de terre des Antilles (Antilles Potato Gratin)      Origin: Guadeloupe	Pintade à l'Afrique (African Guinea Fowl)      Origin: Guinea
Calulu de Cabara (Goat Meat Calulu)      Origin: Angola	Grenada Oil Down      Origin: Grenada	Pône (Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Pound)      Origin: Saint Barthélemy
Calulu de Peixe (Fish Calulu)      Origin: Angola	Grenadian Coconut Curry Chicken      Origin: Grenada	Poulet de Comores (Comorian Chicken)      Origin: Comoros
Camel Chubbagin      Origin: Mauritania	Guyanese Metemgee      Origin: Guyana	Pressure Cooker Vegetable and Coconut Curry      Origin: Fusion
Candied Sweet Potatoes      Origin: Jamaica	Habichuelas Con Dulce (Dominican Sweet Beans)      Origin: Dominican Republic	Pudding and Souse      Origin: Barbados
Cape Malay Seafood Curry      Origin: South Africa	Hervido de pescado (Boiled Fish with Vegetables)      Origin: Costa Rica	Pudding de patates douces (Sweet Potato Pudding)      Origin: Saint-Martin
Carapaus Fritos (Portuguese Fried Mackerel)      Origin: Portugal	Himalayan Balsam Seed Curry      Origin: Fusion	Red Oil Greens      Origin: Liberia
Carbonade Flamande      Origin: Belgium	Jamaican Curried Jackfruit      Origin: Jamaica	Renga Renga (Burundi Sweet Potato Leaf Stew)      Origin: Burundi
Chicken Boileen      Origin: Saint Vincent	Jamaican Seafood Soup      Origin: Jamaica	Saint Kitts Chicken Bouillon      Origin: Saint Kitts
Chubbagin Lélé et Raabie      Origin: Mauritania	Jarret de Boeuf      Origin: Chad	Saint Lucia Lambi Soup with Dumplings      Origin: Saint Lucia
Coconut Curry      Origin: Seychelles	Jerk Sweet Potato and Black Bean Curry      Origin: Jamaica
Cod-fish Balls      Origin: Dominica	Kétoun (Stew of Tubers)      Origin: Guinea

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