W is for the West Indies, where good healthy carbohydrates are plentiful.

Typical sources are rice and beans, plantains (green bananas), the cornmeal mush known as cou cou, and root vegetables such as eddoes, tannia, dasheen, cassava, slippery yams and delicious red- skinned sweet potatoes.

The nicest way of cooking sweet potatoes isn't very healthy. They can be peeled, sliced, parboiled, then baked with brown sugar and butter for half an hour. What follows is more the thing, a homely recipe which can also be used for the less exciting yams.

BAKED SWEET

POTATO

Serves 4

2lb sweet potatoes (or yams)

1 small onion, grated

2oz flour

1/4 pint milk

1oz butter

1oz grated cheese

salt and pepper

Cook the sweet potatoes (or yams) unpeeled in boiling water until they are parboiled. This will take about 20 minutes for two 1lb potatoes.

When cool enough to handle, peel and slice them thinly. Line a buttered oven dish with alternate layers of potato and onion, sprinkling each with flour and seasoning. Pour the milk over the top, sprinkle with cheese and dot with butter. Bake in a medium oven preheated to 325F/170C/Gas 3 for about 30 minutes.