Roasted sweet potato


Roasted sweet potato is a popular winter street food in East Asia.

China

In China, yellow-fleshed sweet potatoes are roasted in a large iron drum and sold as street food during winter. They are called kǎo-báishǔ in northern China, haau faan syu in Cantonese speaking regions, and kǎo-dìguā in Taiwan, as the name of sweet potatoes themselves vary across the sinophone states and regions.

Korea

Sweet potatoes roasted in drum cans, called gun-goguma, are also popular in both North and South Korea. The food is sold from late autumn to winter by the vendors wearing ushanka, which is sometimes referred to as "roasted sweet potato vendor hat" or "roasted chestnut vendor hat". Although any type of goguma can be roasted, softer, moist varieties such as hobak-goguma are preferred over firmer, floury varieties such as bam-goguma for roasting.
In South Korea, roasted sweet potatoes are dried to make gun-goguma-mallaengi, and frozen to make ice-gun-goguma.
Although gun-goguma has traditionally been a winter food, gun-goguma ice cream and gun-goguma smoothie are nowadays enjoyed in summer.

Japan

In Japan, similar street food is called ishi yaki-imo and sold from trucks during the winter.