The Best Vegetable

Throughout my childhood, sweet potato casserole reigned king of the tubers at my family's Thanksgiving table. It's a ritual: a mere half hour before the meal my stomach will roil in need of that salty sweet perfume wafting up the stairs from the kitchen, but I have to wait, or burn my fingers on the oven-hot, sweet potato innards. My mom's recipe, one from Bette Haney – who originally had it from Mrs. Maggie Schenault of Alabama – clipped from a newspaper, is a dessert that needs no marshmallow fluff because it's really a pie without a bottom crust masquerading as a vegetable. My favorite Thanksgiving vegetable.



One year my mom tried to make baked acorn squash instead of my sweet potatoes. My whole family had been changing up the traditions for a few years, most memorably swapping one giant turkey – difficult to roast without drying it out – for a couple of capon chickens, and adding in my step-dad's carrot soufflé. I love that soufflé (another cleverly disguised dessert mingling with the dinner foods) and I did like the baked acorn squash (though I probably eye rolled through it that first year). Still, my sweet potatoes had that mythic cloak curling coyly about them from the time when adults went into the kitchen and feasts magically came out, all while I played with Barbies and half-listened to the parade on TV.

Bette Haney's Sweet-Potato Casserole with Praline Topping

(Halved for toaster oven convenience.)

Bought at the store:

Potato Mixture:

1 ½ large eggs (I know, half an egg, right? But if you pour it out and then divide half off to not use, it works.)

2 lbs sweet potatoes (Although if they've still got leftover sweet potatoes in the dining hall, they'd save you a bunch of steps and time. You'd just have to scrape off any offending marshmallow bits before use.)

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup melted butter

2 ½ Tablespoons heavy whipping cream

½ teaspoon vanilla

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon allspice

Topping:

½ cup packed light-brown sugar (You'll want to do the packing, it'll give you more sugar if you cram the measuring cup full than if it's just loose.)

1 ½ Tablespoons flour

¼ cup finely chopped pecans

1 ½ Tablespoons softened butter

1. Peel, boil until soft, drain, and mash the potatoes. Or clean 2 lbs of dining hall cooked sweet potatoes and start from there.
   
2. Beat potatoes and eggs together (make sure you've got a big bowl for this). Mix in remaining Potato Mixture ingredients until you've got a smooth paste.
   
3. For the Topping, stir sugar, flour, and pecans together. Work in the softened butter.
   
4. Pour Potato Mixture into a greased baking dish. Sprinkle Topping evenly over everything.
   
5. Bake 50-60 minutes at 350^O F until the topping is browned and bubbling and sending out perfumed feelers.
   
6. Arrange loose pecan halves in a pattern on top.
   

Enjoy!