George Washington Carver's Sweet Potato Bread Recipe
George Washington Carver in his laboratory at Tuskegee Institute, circa 1932, Courtesy of The New York Public Library
By the 1930s George Washington Carver had become recognized as one of the leading food scientist in United States. This is quite unusual considering that he carried on his work in the South during a period in which popular white public opinion viewed African-Americans as weak minded. Carver spent most of his career on the faculty of Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee Alabama—a HBCU Booker T. Washington founded just after the Civil War. Carver would go on to receive the Theodore Roosevelt metal for his achievements in food science such as discovering over 200 different uses for the sweet potato. Carver often said that anybody can cook with sweet potatoes which he described as “pleasant with a delicate flavor if cooked properly.” About the sweet potato, Carver also said, “steaming develops and preserves the flavor better than boiling and baking better than steaming. A sweet potato cooked quickly is not cooked. Time is an essential element.”
George Washington Carver's Sweet Potato Bread Recipe
Ingredients
1 cup finely mashed sweet potatoes
2 tablespoons warm water
½ Teaspoon yeast cake
1 teaspoon salt
3 ¾ cups flour, or sufficient to make soft dough
Directions
Add the salt to the potatoes, and the yeast; put in the water and flour enough to make a smooth sponge (about a cupful); cover, and set in a warm place to rise. When light add the remainder of the flour or whatever is needed to make smooth, elastic dough. Cover and let rise until light; mold; shape into loaves or rolls; let rise and bake. Many variations of the above bread can be made by adding sugar, butter, lard, nuts, and spices.
The Baltimore Afro-American, December 9, 1939
Food Historian Dr. Frederick Douglass Opie
