Very odd “holes” in sweet potato

What you see: Superficial holes all over your sweet potato.
What it is: Most likely, some kind of insect damage. 
Eat or toss: The dry, healed sweet potato skin signals that the sweet potato recovered from the injury and no rot set in. You can peel it off if it bothers you. 

For a while I had this in my files as “outer space sweet potato.” It looks so odd! Almost like craters on a faraway planet, maybe?

But Cole Gregorie, Louisiana’s statewide extension specialist for sweet potatoes, said the explanation is simple and very, well, down-to-earth. Most likely some insects got to this potato while it was growing underground. In his region, he said cucumber beetles are a frequent enemy of the swelling roots. In the mid-Atlantic, where this potato came from, wireworms are particularly likely suspects. 

In any case, the insects, usually in their voracious grub phase, chow down on the potatoes leaving little holes. Depending on where the sweet potato is in its own life journey, the holes might heal over and expand as the sweet potato continues to grow. In this case, the holes have done just that, and the skin is trying to close up the holes, creating those furrows and the slight overhang of the skin above the holes.

“This particular bug damage is just going to be these surface-level craters, and the potato is absolutely fine,” Gregorie said.