Sweet potatoes came to China from overseas during the Ming dynasty.
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culture
番 'foreign' marks crops that came from abroad, like 番茄 tomato. Sweet potato reached Fujian from the Philippines in the 1590s. Its name changes by region: 番薯 in the south, 地瓜 in the north, 红薯 in standard Mandarin, 红苕 in Sichuan.
