Sweet Potato Pone/Pain Patate

Have you ever heard of pain patate? Sweet potato pone is the same as "pain patate", an old New Orleans street food. It turns out that pain patate was sold on the streets of New Orleans back in the day.  The 1902 New Orleans Guide describes it as a kind of pie or cold pudding made of sweet potatoes" sold at the French Market by women who also sold calas (rice fritters) and pralines. Pain patate/sweet potato pone recipes can be found here and there in classic New Orleans cookbooks, including Leon Soniat's La Bouche Creole and "Mme. Begues Recipes of Old New Orleans Creole Cookery.

One of many street foods of old New Orleans, along with ginger cake, calas, almond sticks, pralines supplemented the first foods of the banquette. (sidewalk) Such as while the levee oyster men were kept busy opening fresh oysters for customers; another favorite Sunday pleasure was candied fruit. These edible wares were usually sold by Negro women wearing bright tignons and balancing on their heads large baskets of their wares, products. The custom on Sunday was to parade around the Place d'Armes or Jackson Square where small stands sold fruit, sweet cakes and ginger beer.

Showing Several Different Versions 

In Mary Land's 1969 New Orleans Cuisine one of the wares is listed as pain patate, or sweet potato cake. The Queen of Creole Cuisine, chef Leah Chase of Dooky Chase's Restaurant, remembers as a child the calas ladies and praline vendors when she came to New Orleans from rural Madisonville to visit her grandmother.

Although she doesn't remember pain patate vendors, she knows the dish. "It's like a potato bread, a sweet potato pone that they call Pain Patate." Chase said. "You work with the sweet potatoes raw." Her recipe in The Dooky Chase Cookbook does not call for black pepper. However, she says, "You know people always put a little black pepper in sweets,for some uncanny reason? Like when they whipped cream with black pepper for strawberries." (Her sweet potato pone recipe comes with a story as a lot of recipes do)

Chase's recipe includes sweet spices: cinnamon, allspice, vanilla and nutmeg. The recipe in the 1932 New Orleans Creole Recipes by Mary Moore Bremer has nutmeg, clove, cinnamon and the zest of lemon and orange; it also states, just as Chase did, that "Old Creole cooks add a dash of black pepper. So when baked, the pain patate had a wonderful moist dense texture and a slight "bite" to the flavor. (thanks to the pepper)

Here is Leah Chase's version, from The Dooky Chase Cookbook. It is listed in the chapter on breads and breakfast foods.

Sweet Potato Pone (Makes 6 to 8 servings)

Version Two

4 large sweet potatoes
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
3 cups sugar
6 eggs, beaten
1 cup Pet milk
1 cup water
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 tablespoon vanilla
Grated nutmeg

Peel and grate sweet potatoes. Mix butter and sugar together. Slowly add eggs to mixture and mix well. While stirring, rapidly add milk and water. Stir until mixture is smooth. Add cinnamon, allspice, vanilla and grated sweet potatoes.

Grease a glass baking dish. Add sweet potato mixture to baking dish and sprinkle top with grated nutmeg. Bake at 300 degrees until pudding is set.

An adaptation of the Ursuline Cookbook recipe (Recipes & Reminiscences of New Orleans by The Ursuline Alunmnae Association, author)

Sweet Potato Pone/Pain Patate  (Makes 4 servings)

Another Version  

1/2 cup butter, softened   
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 eggs, well beaten
2 cups peeled, grated sweet potatoes (two extra large)
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup molasses
Grated rind of 1/2 orange and 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground cardomom
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 (or more) teaspoon black pepper
Cream butter and sugar together and blend in eggs. Add potatoes, milk and spices. Stir in molasses, orange and lemon rind.
Pour into buttered loaf pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 30 minutes, or until browned and crisp on top.

Thanks to Susan Tucker and archivist Mary-Allen Johnson of the Newcomb Archives, Newcomb College Center for Research on Women, for the recipes by Land and Bremmer.

For several years I worked the professional chef's booth at JazzFest, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival; here's their version,
2-1/2 pounds sweet potatoes
1/4 cup melted butter
2 eggs
1/4 cup dark brown sugar (firmly packed)
1/2 cup milk
1-1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup light molasses
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon grated orange zest (do not include the white pith, which is bitter)

Preheat oven to 375°F.
Cook the potatoes unpeeled until tender throughout. Let cool. Peel and mash the potatoes, then stir in melted butter.
In a bowl, beat the eggs, add sugar and beat thoroughly. Add milk, vanilla, molasses, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and orange zest. Beat until well blended. Stir into mashed sweet potatoes, then mix until well blended.
Place the mixture into a buttered 1-1/2 quart baking dish. Optionally, you may sprinkle the top of the pone with additional brown sugar. Cover with foil and bake for 50 minutes; uncover, then bake for 10 minutes. Allow the pone to cool completely before serving.