I have always look upon sweet potatoes as the Chinese version of potatoes.

Over here, we usually have it for dessert or make pastries. The simplest thing is to make sweet potato soup (a dessert here). Cut the potato into smaller pieces and boil it for a couple of minutes with a few slices of ginger. When it its soft enough to eat, add a bit of sugar to it, and you have clear sweet potato soup.

When young, we use to eat steamed sweet potatoes.