- Consumers recognized that Mississippi sweet potatoes had a flavor and a sweetness that surpassed all the competition in the early 1900s. The demand has been steady ever since.
Connoisseurs of sweet potatoes everywhere will tell you straight up that all sweet potatoes are not created equal. If you are particular about your favorite pie or casserole ingredients during the holiday season, insist on sweet potatoes from Vardaman, Mississippi.
With a population of 1110 in the 2020 Census, the tiny but mighty-in-spirit community on Highway 8 in Eastern Calhoun County deserves its moniker as “The Sweet Potato Capital of the World.”
In 1974, a few prominent Vardaman citizens proposed the idea of a Sweet Potato Festival. It would be a unique economy-boosting event, promote their city’s key industry, and bring a bit of tourism to rural Mississippi. Seeking the favor of then-Governor Bill Waller, a committee of city officials and potato farmers asked for his approval to designate Vardaman “the Sweet Potato Capital of Mississippi.”
Governor Waller, whose job was always to extol the virtues of Mississippi and her people, thought the idea was fabulous, but their dreams were too small. Thus, the “Sweet Potato Capital of the World” emerged and announced itself boldly on billboards and across the single water tower in town.
A few weeks ago, the National Sweet Potato Festival celebrated its fifty-first event with attendance at the week-long event of around 30,000. All this praise and attention could not have happened to a nicer vegetable.
More than 100 million pounds of sweet potatoes grown right here make their way into the commercial market every year, supplying retail grocers in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Mississippi is third in the nation behind North Carolina and California in sweet potato production. With about 10,000 acres dedicated to sweet potatoes and with 19 packaging operations in Calhoun County, it is a common sight to find lines of 18-wheelers streaming out of Vardaman across the rural highways.
Thanks to advances in temperature-controlled storage, the sweet potato crop harvested in the fall continues to supply grocers year-round. And why not? The sweet potato may be worth its weight in gold from a health perspective.
Frequently listed as the number one veggie in nutritional content, sweet potatoes offer a host of health benefits. Rich in fiber, vitamin C, vitamin A, and cancer-fighting anti-oxidants, sweet potatoes are touted as the number one “superfood” by The Center for Science in the Public Interest. Sweet potatoes are supposed to help you lose weight, stabilize blood sugar, and reduce inflammation due to arthritis.
Sweet potato farming arrived in Calhoun County around 1915 when a few Martin, Tennessee farmers came by train with mules and tools in tow. Buying some of the plentiful acreage around Calhoun County, they planted sweet potatoes because that was the crop they knew. What they did not know was how incredibly suited Calhoun County dirt was for growing exceptional sweet potatoes. Whatever nutrients sweet potatoes need to thrive, the dirt in Calhoun County was packed with them, and the resulting product was scrumptious.
Consumers soon recognized that those Mississippi sweet potatoes had a flavor and a sweetness that surpassed all the competition. The demand has been steady ever since. Vardaman sweet potatoes have become just one of the traditional essentials to grace the tables of Southern family feasts. They help create the culinary memories that make “us” uniquely “us!”
Sweet potato farming is deeply personal to these Vardaman folks. Theirs are family farms, ranging in size from 400 acres to 2000, and they go back as many as five generations. Most of today’s farm owners can tell you about driving their granddad’s tractors and digging potatoes with their siblings before the days of machinery that digs out the tubers in rows of two. The memories run deep, and the love for their livelihood does, too.
Vardaman’s farming families consider themselves stewards of the land entrusted to them. Despite the modern innovations that have streamlined the process, sweet potato farming is still unusually labor intensive. Even so, the job satisfaction rate is extremely high, and the number of jobs the industry creates is significant. Sweet potato farming, like a lot of professions, is simply a passionate calling for some.
Among Vardaman’s chief sweet potato ambassadors is native Jane Cook-Houston who runs a family-owned bakery, “Sweet Potato Sweets,” a unique shop with a menu of more than 40 items, all using sweet potatoes as an ingredient. Located on the main thoroughfare, Sweet Potato Avenue, the store ships its sweet potato fudge, pies, cheese straws, pancake mix, cookies, muffin tops, bonbons, dog treats, and more all over the country.
“We will put sweet potatoes in anything,” says Jane, whose late mother and two of her friends opened the bakery in 1996. 95% of their business comes from out-of-staters and out-of-towners just passing by.
No story on Mississippi sweet potatoes would be complete without a nod to THE Sweet Potato Queen, Jill Conner Browne.
She claims no ties to Vardaman although she says she once volunteered to be their festival queen, but no one returned her phone call. Her hilarious creation of the Sweet Potato Queen “Worldwide Peace Movement,” per her words, has done as much as any sweet potato promoter to bring recognition to Mississippi and to spotlight some of the best of our eccentric Southern generosity and charm. Currently, there are 6600 Sweet Potato Queen chapters in 37 countries. MS Children’s Hospital has been the recipient of over $500,000 through their donations, and a drive for Katrina victims in 2005 yielded $100,000.
She was kind enough to share her sweet potato casserole with us. It is probably not going to help you lose weight, but it will be a hit with everybody around your table!
Larrupin” Good Sweet Potatoes
3 cups cooked sweet potatoes
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 stick salted butter
One running-over teaspoon vanilla flavoring
2 eggs beaten
Dash salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With a potato masher, mash potatoes, sugar, milk, butter, vanilla, and salt in a mixing bowl. Taste for desired sweetness before adding eggs. Add sugar if needed, then add eggs and mix well. Put into an appropriate-sized baking dish. Add topping.
Topping
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup salted butter
1/3 cup flour
1 cup pecan pieces
1 cup coconut (optional)
Mix sugar, butter, flour, pecan pieces, and coconut (optional). Spread over top of potatoes, then bake for about 30 minutes. Watch for over-browning.
