So, I got to the vocabulary for the kanji of potato 芋 : じゃが芋 “white potato”.
This doesn’t seem quite right to me. Jisho says じゃが芋 is just potato, and that is how I learned it from my self studies (though this is the first time I see it in written form).
After all, Japanese people think of sweet potatoes and mountain potatoes (wild variety) as the main/traditional varieties of potatoes, which are red on the outside and yellow on the inside.
But, here we learn 芋 as potato. Not sweet potato. Then there is じゃが芋 “white potato” - a type of potato that doesn’t exist from a culinary perspective as far as I know (we talk about starchy and waxy potatoes, though there is also a middle ground like Asterix out there).
This is all a tad confusing for me.
Is 芋 = potato or sweet potato?
is じゃが芋 = normal potato or some weird unique variety found in Japan
Edit: also:
焼き芋 【やきいも】 is not roasted potato (as WK teaches us here), it’s roasted sweet potato. (I guess it could be both thus my confusion here)
Traditionally you make a pile of leaves and put the sweet potatoes in there and light a fire and roast them like that.