Things I learned whilst making sweet potato toast

Mr. Internet told me that sweet potatoes can be made into toast. Like most things on the internet, this turned out to be half true. You can in fact cut a sweet potato into bread-sized slices, put them in a toaster oven, then add toppings. But the result, while delicious, will not be toast. The recipe for toast is:

Bread + Toasting Device = Toast

There are few certainties in life but this is one of them.

Not Bread + Toasting Device = Not Toast

Sweet Potato = Not Bread

Therefore:

Sweet Potato + Toasting Device = Not Toast

Don't get me wrong, sweet potatoes are great. As it turns out, they also make convenient slabs capable of delivering other foods into your mouth. While they can approximate the requisite crispiness, sweet potatoes are lacking in breadness, the very essence of toast, therefore they can only ever be a pale imitation at best.

Last night I made sweet potato "toasts" for dinner and topped one with almond butter, one with a fried egg and one with applesauce and cinnamon. There are a lot of other topping options I'd imagine would be just as good, but those happened to be on the ones I had in the kitchen at the time. I ate them with a side of pickled beets (because sweets and beets are good eats).

Then I made actual bread toast with almond butter and ate that too. Because it's fun to branch out and try new things but at the end of the day, just be who you are. If you're a sweet potato, be a sweet potato. Be the best sweet potato you can be. Don't try to be toast. Like my second favorite sailor man said, "I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam."

I'll probably make sweet potato toast again. It was quite scrumptious. And I'm all for foods that can be eaten sans utensils. But I will call it something else, sweet potato slabs or crisps or whatnots. Probably whatnots. Because I just want things to be as they are. Whatever they are, the weird, the wonderful, all of it. I crave honesty and authenticity. I don't want a life of pretense. I have no interest in superficial relationships. I want a life rich in experiences and balls deep in friendships. Don't give me a tuber and tell me it's bread. Come as you are and let's toast to that.

Lyric of the moment: "Come with fear, come with love. Come however you are. Just come, come alone. Come with friends, come with foes. Come however you are, just come. Come, come along. Come with sorrows and songs. Come, let yourself be wrong. Come however you are, just come..." ~Damien Rice "Trusty and True"