Sweet potatos are yellow or orange tubers popular in the American South. They have a thin skin and a paler flesh that has a crumbly texture similar to a white baking potato. There is also a darker skinned variety that is commonly mislabeled as a yam.

Real yams are the tuber of a vine grown in tropical areas and Africa and can grow to several feet in length and a hundred pounds in weight. The texture of a yam is more oily, not floury like a sweet potato or baking potato. It has a brown or black skin which resembles the bark of a tree and off-white, purple, or red flesh.

Odds are, if you live in the U.S., you've never seen a real yam.

Unfortunately, sometimes even stores label these wrong and get them confused. Darker skinned sweet potatos are labeled as yams all the time, and real yams might be a bit tricky to find.

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