more about vegetables

Because, could there be a more exciting topic? In this week's farm share were these crayziee things:

So I thought, a weird white carrot? They do come in other colors, says the internet. Parsnips maybe? Most pics of those have them fatter on the top, though. My guess is skinny slightly under ripe parsnips. Dunno how I can figure out how to cook them if I don't know for sure what they are.

Also in the box was a giant yam. A really big one, almost football sized.  Almost...more like Tom Brady sized. I followed a recipe for some baked yam fries. At dinner I told the kids how that one yam made a whole pizza pan of fries. Michael said he thought this is a vegetable? I said "It is a vegetable... uh, are you thinking of a yak?" He said "So what's a yam?" When I'd been saying yam, he was thinking meat, and yet the yam fries looked decidedly un-meatlike. That's how strange the kids find this experience - if we're eating such peculiar vegetables, why not Himalayan cows?

*note that the internet says us ignorant North Americans often actually mean sweet potato when we say yam. Wiki proclaims "Yams are a monocot (a plant having one embryonic seed leaf) and from the Dioscoreaceae family. Sweet Potatoes are a dicot (a plant having two embryonic seed leaves) and are from the Convolvulacea family. They are therefore about as distant as two flowering plants can be."
Emphasis mine. For shame America!