Sweet potatoes

As a little girl going to school in Seoul I was introduced to many weird and fascinating foodstuffs that the children of that period, the late Eighties, snacked on. Coming from a country where tea-time meant fish fingers and peas, I considered having boiled silkworm pupae (beon-daegi) and pig's intestine sausage (soon-dae) as something rather novel. Initially, I would refuse to eat the new food, saying that it smelt bad or it looked foul. But my curiosity would get the better of me, and I would end up trying it out - only to spit it out moments later.

One of those snacks that I did not spit out, but instead became rather fond of, was baked sweet potato (what the Japanese call yaki-imo). The red skinned, yellow fleshed tuber was a sugary, hot delight on a cold winter's day. They were usually baked in rudimentary stoves pulled along by leathery wrinkled men who stopped by the traffic lights whenever they were done and called out, "Buy my baked sweet potato (goon-goguma sa-reo)!" in a funny tonal singsong to attract the attention of passers-by. If you paid the old man the pittance it costs to get you these sweet potatoes, he would wrap them up in a makeshift paper bag made of newspaper and you would see the trail of the sweet smell behind you in the cold, with young men in suits and fashionable ladies in boots looking hungrily at the white aroma. Suddenly, the old man and his stove full of delicious ware are the centre of attention.

They sell baked sweet potatoes in a large stove outside of the Japanese grocery store, Mitsuwa in Edgewater. Maybe it was because it was just such a cold winter's day as I had experienced as a child, or maybe it was because the sweet potatoes smelt so good - I pounced on them, even though I had just finished my lunch inside the food court. I haven't seen them selling these in Seoul during my previous visits there, so when would I get to have them again?
"Are you sure you want one now?" M. asked. I had been unable to finish a bowl of noodles just a few minutes ago. But I was not to be stopped.
"Can I have a small one please?" I asked the young Japanese lady manning the stall. She picked up the smallest which happened to be the size of two large fists combined. We walked along the Hudson and M. looked on as I peeled away the hot baked skin.
"I haven't had one in years," I said to M., by way of explanation, as I dug my teeth into the moist, fragrant golden flesh. The warmth of the taste made me smile and I bit deeper into the potato.
"I think you should drink something. Don't choke," M. said, magically producing a bottle of Gatorade. I was going to refuse but then I remembered something my mother had told me when I was little and having a baked sweet potato - 'Always drink something when you are having baked sweet potato, otherwise you will get a tummy ache.' So I gulped down some orange liquid then went back to work on my sweet potato.

I don't remember much of the walk. M. says I was a woman possessed.
"You realise you were holding the sweet potato like this?" he said, mimicking my stance - which was more that of a leprechaun hoarding its gold, rather than that of a person having a snack. I didn't mind him teasing me; it was that good.