By Joe Yonan Food and Dining Editor February 9 at 7:00 AM

Food trends seem to come at the speed of light nowadays. You hear somebody mention the words bone broth, and you think, Isnt that just stock? The next day you hear it mentioned about a dozen times on Twitter, and you read a piece emphasizing that its so much more than just stock, and the day after that you hear a story about it on the radio explaining that it has to include vinegar, and you spot it on a restaurant menu and see it in little aseptic packages in the supermarket.

A little part of you continues to think, Isnt it just stock? and wishes everybody would just shut up about it, already. And the whole thing reminds you of why you dont listen to commercial music radio anymore: Some perfectly catchy tune is reduced to the most annoying earworm ever just because some DJ has no imagination.

[ Recipe: Sweet Potato, Collard and Black-Eyed Pea Soup]

Anyway, I dont think thats going to happen with another broth I discovered recently. I was flipping through Soul Food Love, Alice Randall and Caroline Randall Williamss new cookbook, looking for ideas, and I saw the most beautiful soup, made of sweet potatoes, kale and black-eyed peas. But the sweet potatoes werent in big chunks, like the carrots. They had been pureed with a lot of water, making a beautiful orange backdrop for the chunky soup.

The three words I read next made me gasp out loud: sweet potato broth. The story is that Alice needed a vegetarian substitute for her classic soup, and she and her daughter, Caroline, came up with the sweet potato idea. Its simple enough: You simmer a cut-up sweet potato with aromatic vegetables and water (and some cloves) until its tender, and you fish out those cloves and puree the rest.

When you use it to make the soup (and sub collards or mustard greens for the kale, if you like), you realize the true brilliance: The broth is thin enough to let the other ingredients take center stage but thick enough to provide just the right amount of body. The recipe makes more than twice as much broth as you need for the soup, but consider it a bonus, because there are lots of other ways I can imagine using the broth. One night this week, Ill make a vegetarian riff on tortilla soup, with black beans and tomatoes.

Sweet potato broth deserves to be trendy, but it probably never will be. And thats fine with me, because I dont ever want to get sick of it.

See the original post:
Are you tired of bone broth? Try this vegetarian sweet potato broth instead.