For 36 years, columnist and photographer Brice Stump wrote about life on the Eastern Shore. In his columns, he explored its history – including the Civil War, and pondered the petty tribulations of modern life.
On one topic in particular, Stump was passionate: White Hayman Sweet Potatoes. Having been raised on a farm, Stump admitted they aren’t easy to grow. But of their flavor, he sang the praises.
“Unlike the familiar orange-fleshed sweet potatoes that required marshmallows, brown sugar and lots of butter to enhance their nutty flavor, the Hayman tickles the palate with a natural, delicately sweet taste and heavenly texture,” Stump wrote in the Salisbury Daily Times in 1999. In that article, he interviewed Rev. Sally Bowen, a descendent of Daniel Hayman, the ship captain purported to have brought the potatoes from North Carolina to Maryland in the 1850s.
Although stories trace White Haymans to North Carolina, nary a trace of them can be found there now. White Haymans are a specialty of the Eastern Shore, “raised only for Shore consumers,” wrote Stump.
Eight years later he bemoaned the proliferation of O’Henrys appearing on the market, ironically “coming out of the Carolinas, apparently.” These pretenders were giving Haymans a bad name. An authenticity test was recommended: “If you put pressure down on your thumb and draw it over the face of a Hayman, it will ‘skin’ easily, whereas the O’Henry wont.”
If the difference is so stark, that casts a lot of doubt on my last attempt at a white sweet potato pie. This time around, my mom acquired some Haymans from Whiteraven’s Nest in Chincoteague, Virginia – along with several other varieties of sweet potato. So I used a blend. She was warned to cure them several weeks, in a warm and dry place, or else risk defeating the point of even tasting them.
The 1921 book “The Sweet Potato: A Handbook for the Practical Grower” by T.E. Hand and K.L. Cockerham agreed. The book stated that Haymans were also being marketed as “Southern Queen” and advised “it is much improved in eating quality by storage and though not a very choice eating potato in fall and early winter, it becomes very good indeed in late winter and spring.”
Bernard Herman’s 2020 book “A South You Never Ate” has a chapter dedicated to Haymans. Herman’s neighbors also lamented that sellers were passing off O’Henrys as the hard-to-get Hayman. William Harmon, one of the last farmers growing the coveted item, told Herman of the finicky nature of the plant itself. “Now Hayman potato, he won’t grow fast. He take his time,” Harmon said.
At one point in time, a large portion of Virginia’s Eastern Shore economy depended on potatoes (sweet and not) grown for New York Markets. The 1884 railroad had made transport northward swift and reliable. In 1928, fourteen thousand boxcars left the peninsula carrying Irish potatoes. The labor was largely done by Black field hands, tenant farmers or owners of small farms.
Herman’s book delves deeper into the growing, curing and cooking of Haymans. It is a great read.
Thanks to Herman’s book, I broke one of my cardinal rules of cookbook acquisition and I purchased a non-Maryland cookbook. My copy of Fairy Mapp White’s 1958 “Foolproof Cookbook” is a gem though, signed by the author, with a few handwritten corrections within. Faded cover and discolored spine, it smells like the Nancy Drew books I used to read as a girl. Anyhow, it was printed in Baltimore.
White included instructions for baking sweet potatoes, “Hamans and Spanish”: “Potatoes should be put into a hot oven dripping wet, heat reduced some in about 15 or 20 minutes. I learned from a substitute maid Christmas 1953 that greasing Spanish and Haman potatoes with left-over sausage or bacon drippings made them bake and peel better.”
White noted that “as far as [she knows] Haman and Spanish potatoes are raised only on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.” She also remarked that the potatoes “are hard to find now” – now being 1958, when her book was published.
I made this pie before I had a copy of “Foolproof Cookbook.” Recipes particular to white sweet potatoes are hard to come by – or too easy, if you take into account that for many Eastern Shore residents, the requirement doesn’t even need to be mentioned.
Still, I decided to try a recipe from Cindy Knopp, a farmer who was interviewed by the Baltimore Sun in 1988. Cindy and her husband Robert Knopp, Jr. grew several varieties of sweet potatoes and sold them at the downtown farmers’ market that year. Like many articles mentioning the Hayman, that one suggested they be baked – not boiled.
In 2015, after the Salisbury Daily Times was acquired by “media holding company” Gannett, Brice Harpers job was basically eliminated to make way for the “Newsroom of the Future.” Rhapsodizing about sweet potatoes just doesn’t drive clicks (I should know).
While the digital era has taken away some things, it gives others. Within minutes I am able to pull up many of Harper’s various articles mentioning Haymans. They join the canon of Hayman lore, right along with Fairy Mapp White’s own recollection “Home from public school, known as Grange Hall, on the old Keller Fair Grounds, nothing was more satisfying for a snack than a home made sausage and a juicy Haman.” Like the Hayman, folksy storytelling may not produce profits for the shareholders, but it lives on.
Recipe:
- 3 cups cooked, mashed white sweet potatoes (about 1.5 lbs)
- 1 cup flaked coconut
- 1 teaspoon coconut extract
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon ginger
- 3/4 cup milk
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 tablespoons margarine
- 1 9-inch unbaked deep dish pie shell
Heat oven to 350°.
Mash sweet potato flesh – for a smoother pie, strain through a sieve.
Add all other ingredients and beat on high speed until mixed.
Pour mixture into pie shell and bake for 50 to 55 minutes. Serve topped with whipped cream and additional coconut.
Recipe Adapted from the Baltimore Sun, 1988
