They're all sweet potatoes but for some reason we call the orange-fleshed ones yams.

Thanks `t, I just googled the same myself. That fits with my childhood recollection. Of course now I'm having a hard time finding a photo of an actual yam. Also I know one of the two has more nutritional value, but I can't recall which one.

The soft orange ones are sold as 'yams' even though, of course, they aren't.

Sweet potato pudding is orange here, isn't it?

Actual factual yams! [link]

I have a food question: what's the norm in butter where you are: salted or unsalted? We were discussing how hard it is to find unsalted butter around here. My local supermarket is HUGE, and it still only stocks one type of unsalted butter and only in half-pound blocks. There's even local dairies that make extra-salted butter, so I kind of wondered if it was a regional thing for salted butter to be so much more popular.

Salted is the norm.

I like sweet potatoes just roasted or baked like white potatoes -- with butter and salt.

Roasted sweet potatoes with dill are delicious.

My grocery store always seems to have salted and un of each brand.

Butter's about evenly available salted or unsalted where I shop. Each brand seems to have both.

I like sweet potatoes just roasted or baked like white potatoes -- with butter and salt.

Me, too, but I can't bring myself to eat the skins, while I love the skin part of Russets.

I have no trouble finding unsalted butter, but I'm already in the organic section before I even start to look, so I don't know if that's generally the case around here.