Japanese Sweet Potatoes--Childhood memories

Japanese sweet potato (“satsuma-imo”) is one of my favorite ingredients to work with. When I was a child in Japan, my family grew a varieties of vegetables including sweet potatoes. After we harvested the sweet potatoes in the fall, we stored them in a deep pit in our backyard over winter. As a child, it was always thrilling to climb down into a dark underground pit to get potatoes when we needed. We ate steamed or baked sweet potatoes a lot simply with a pinch of salt. We did not have much snack choice at that time. How could I complain about it? I miss my grandfather’s sweet potatoes! He was a good cook too. I wonder what my grandfather would think of my sweet potato treats if he were still alive.