History/Evolution/FamilyTree

Speculation of its origins and evolution of its specie.

The sweet potato cart, seems timeless. And maybe I want to keep with this idea of timelessness that surrounds him. However, curiosity still agitates me from time to time: What great mind  invented this adorable thing? Where? When? How? Why?
If I had the opportunity to ask its inventor one question, it would definitely be: WHY? Why that design resembling a little locomotive? What relation did he saw between that form and the perfect cooking of a sweet potato?
The question about when is also hard to tell, but at least I saw a reference of the Japanese version of the sweet potato cart (later described), that dates them back to, at least, one hundred years ago.

Apparently this mystery has been buried with someone because it’s been three months now, and not a single reference about this story.
Nonetheless, from what I have gathered, I can speculate some things about its history. And the products it sells —the batata or the plantain, the reason of it all—, might give clues.
Sweet potatoes have a central and South American origin, which, if we want to be purist, could make the argument that  the sweet potato cart is from a purely Latin American invention since they had the material to cook and distribute. However, I have asked some South American friends (Peruvian and Colombian) and they told me they have never seen one. I also never saw any online reference that they existed in Latin America besides Mexico. So probably it does not have a Latin American origin, despite the sweet potato ancestry.

The only parts in the world I have seen a similar cart, which also sells and cooks sweet potatos (I am not sure about plantains though), and are mobile, and have a striking design similarities, is in Egypt, China, Korea and Japan. Could the sweet potato cart have had an Asian or African origin  (or both) and the idea migrated to Mexico at some point in history? Or, maybe the other way round? 
That sweet potato cart connection between Mexico and Asia is intriguing. It made me remember the long forgotten theory of diffusionism, which at this point in anthropological theory is more than death.
To resolve this quandary I could do a track of a big wave of migration either from Asia or Mexico and see if it has a connection, or maybe I just could ask someone who speaks Chinese or Egyptian if they could translate documents about its history. 
Maybe the only barrier that separates me from knowing it all about the sweet potato cart, is language. Until I don’t find a Chinese, Korean, Japenese or Egyptian speaking person, the mystery will inhabit me.



Egyptian Sweet Potato cart:

http://www.galenfrysinger.com/cairo_shops.htm

Probably the most beautiful specie of them all is the Egyptian cart. - Apparently the same cooking procedure is done inside the main body: through heat and steam they bake the sweet potato for its later consumption.
It does not resembles a little locomotive like the Mexican one. This one looks more like a carriage. and also, it seems to lack a lot of the Mexican technology which makes me wonder if this is the origin of the sweet potato food cart. 
I lack a lot of information on its functioning or how the sweet potatoes are consumed, so not much clues I got from here.

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/47504491.jpg

Chinese Sweet Potato cart:



This is one of the most wonderful things I have seen.
Its rough and simple construction is perfect. An iphone looks so cold and sterile compared to that piece of beautifully decayed technology.
A rusty old tank with holes, two bicycle wheels on its side, two pieces of wood attached to its top part, its all you need.

Differences with its Mexican cousin: It lacks the chimney, the whistle and hence, it’s magical sound. (however the pictures I saw might not be the best source).
I also do not know well the cooking procedure; if they are boiled or grilled. The lack of chimney might suggest that they are grilled as their Egyptian counterparts.
But they are mobile too. Why do they need to me mobile? Where do they want to go? Who do they want to reach?


Japanese sweet potato cart (s):


I was right. There is a sweet potato woman vendor somewhere in the world.
(first difference).
In comparison to the others, this cart seems to be more static, less in motion. Does this have a gender explanation?
It is Japanese, so, of course,  its the fittest and nicest, and well built of them all. Its parts look new and in good condition. 
-When looking at the picture I assumed that in Japan they would need a type of sanitation license to sell the product on the streets. But from what I have read, this is not the case.
Sweet potato carts in Japan actually find themselves in a political limbo and authorities do not know how or who needs to regulate them.
The difference with the other two, and the important similarity that have with the Mexican is that they too use wood, have a chimney to let the steam out and the sweet potatoes are probably boiled. (However, in the research I did days later I found that they grill them as well)

They also have a whistle! Would they make the same melancholic cry?

 (Isn’t it wonderful how each cart adapts to its cultural circumstance? Even if they are designed to do the same thing, have some basic parts and a similar design, its fluidity and cultural personality stands out.)

The second sweet potato carts in Japan are this:


The explanation I saw about them is very interesting:
Apparently, they have two origins: people that already owned a sweet potato cart but decided to “upgrade” it for a conventional truck with speakers. (An element of resources, and maybe class play a role here. Or just the political and economical circumstance of Japan in relation to Mexico. People owning a camote cart in Mexico could never have the possibility to buy this type of truck. 
For instance, the man that I was going to interview via Skype, didn’t even have a phone number).

And the second origin of this trucks,  and I quote,“are run by hipsters”. Young people in Japan that decided to have a little business. 
However, this hipster run sweet potato carts usually stay static in one place…  usually bars.
Could these help the sweet potatoes carts in Mexico from extinction? that suddenly the hipsters got interested in them as their little business? would this bath them with this new value of “hipness” and “coolness” and hence the narrative that we chilangos hear about “urbanity” will be fulfilled and no more associated with “poorer neighborhoods”? What would they lose though? And what would happen to the humans that accompany them wherever they go? Let’s not forget that Sweet potato carts have been a way of survival probably for hundreds of families in Mexico.
Returning to the upgraded carts, one of the strong similarities I captured in relation with the Mexican is that they also make a sonic announcement that they are there, or in their way to deliver the sweet potatoes to the world.
But instead of a whistle they have a lovely recorded, but completely clingy, customized melody. (I can not get it out of my head anymore…nor my roomate, who was had to hear it all day long)

Even though it is a recording, and this has language incorporated, there is an astounding similarity with the whistle of the Mexican sweet potato truck (and the Mexican tamal cart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-xcK4FbgL0)
.….Is it the steam? But this is not a steam made whistle like the Mexican. Unfortunately I couldn’t find translated information that could resolve this puzzle.

Apparently, this song, or noise, has also struck the hearts of the living species —as far as I know—  living in Japan. This sound, like in the Mexican case, has also been immortalized in popular culture, and tribute songs pour on the internet:

The narrative that they used when doing reference to the sound is also of “nostalgia”. But why, if the sweet potato carts seem alive and well? ( I mean, they are evolving, being upgraded, and young people are using them to make business in front of bars, it looks like youth consumes the product and therefore I would not think they conjure up nostalgia). Or is it another type go nostalgia? I would need much more detailed information to build on this.


Korean Sweet Potato carts:



The Korean sweet potato carts are probably the ones that its design resemble the most to my subject. The horizontal barrel and the chimney give them a similar look. So maybe, instead of a Chinese contact there was a Korean contact?

This might also be true because in one of the references I read in a Mexican webpage is that Korean people in Mexico (tourists, I suppose), are very intrigued my the Mexican sweet potato carts and usually make contact with its vendors to ask them questions about it (I do not know the details of the questions the Koreans make, or why they are intrigued about it).
However a very important difference is that the Koreans lack the mechanism of the whistle and hence, might not have the same sound.
How do the carts that do not have a whistle make their announcement to the people? Maybe the vendor screams instead?
Another similarity is that, they to, are an object of extinction in Korea.Apparently there are fewer and fewer with the passage of time and people consume less the product. 
They haven’t evolved as the Japanese.




Final question and conclusion:
Despite the astounding similarities between them there is ONE element that is not present at all in the other carts (or the information was not enough to capture it), but it was that they didn’t sell plantains, just sweet potatos.
My hypothesis: Sweet potato carts must have an Asian inventor and hence must have been brought by an immigrant to Mexico. By guess is that they were brought at the end of the 19th century—because that is when the biggest wave of immigration from China and Korea to Mexico happened— and, once in Mexico, the cart started to evolve on its own phase and got added the mestizo elements of its new home, like the plantains.
I was never very intrigued by the evolution of “objects” or “things” and how they acquire and get modified (or modify) the culture and the people that they come in contact with. But now I am just fascinated.
This, no doubt, is a very interesting line of inquiry. 

 Lower East Side, NY (1940)
In one of my last searches for this (a day before submitting this thing) I stumbled across this picture from the Lower East Side, which is wonderful. 
Apparently one day, a sweet potatoe cart did exist here in New York. If I had seen it before I  probably would had follow its track. This made me think that I was likely looking in the wrong place all the time (Mexican immigrants basically, instead of Asian) 
This actually resembles the most to the Mexican specie.



*I also saw references of a sweet potato cart in Santa Monica, California and Disneyland (!?) but there were no pictures to analyze or enough information to make assumptions.
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