Grilled Sweet Potatoes with Sesame Dipping Sauce

Grilled sweet potatoes are a popular Korean street food. I first tasted this snack at the Tongdaemun Market in Seoul, where it offered a double dose of pleasure. The first was gustatory—the unexpected contrast between the sweetness of the potato and the sesame saltiness of the dipping sauce. The second pleasure was purely tactile: The potato has a wonderful way of warming your hands in Korea’s frigid winter air. Sweet potatoes were brought to Korea from Japan in the eighteenth century as a