Roasted sweet potato

Roasted sweet potato is a popular winter street food in East Asia.

China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
In China, yellow-fleshed sweet potatoes are roasted in a large iron drum and sold as street food during winter. They are called kǎo-báishǔ (烤白薯; "roasted sweet potato") in northern China, wui faan syu (煨番薯) in Cantonese speaking regions, and kǎo-dìguā (烤地瓜; "roasted sweet potato") in Taiwan and Northeast China, as the name of sweet potatoes themselves vary across the sinophone world.

Korea
Sweet potatoes roasted in drum cans, called gun-goguma (군고구마; "roasted sweet potato"), are also popular in both North and South Korea. The food is sold from late autumn to winter by the vendors wearing ushanka, which is sometimes referred to as "roasted sweet potato vendor hat" or "roasted chestnut vendor hat". Although any type of goguma (sweet potato) can be roasted, softer, moist varieties such as hobak-goguma (pumpkin sweet potato) are preferred over firmer, floury varieties such as bam-goguma ("chestnut sweet potato") for roasting.

In South Korea, roasted sweet potatoes are dried to make gun-goguma-mallaengi (군고구마 말랭이), and frozen to make ice-gun-goguma (아이스 군고구마). Although gun-goguma has traditionally been a winter food, gun-goguma ice cream and gun-goguma smoothie are nowadays enjoyed in summer.

Japan
In Japan, similar street food is called ishi yaki-imo (石焼き芋; "roasted sweet potato in heat stones") and sold from trucks during the winter.

Northern Vietnam
Roasted sweet potatoes (khoai lang nướng) is also a popular street food in Hanoi and Northern Vietnam in winter.

Emoji
In 2010, an emoji was approved for Unicode 6.0 for "roasted sweet potato".