The sweet potato has gone through all the vicissitudes of the culinary art but the old-time ways of cooking the vegetable ensure that its flavour remains unchanged although it is cold-shouldered by so-called gourmets who prefer top-notch restaurants and expensive dishes.

Today in Shanghai, the provider of the baked sweet potato is normally a shabbily dressed man of unkempt appearance with a grimy face who talks in a queer dialect.

His cooking utensils consist of a steel drum-cum-oven, a battered enamelled basin for holding the sweet potatoes and a basket of charcoal briquettes. The unwholesome features of this delicacy do not, however, deter passers-by from patronizing his stall.

Frankly, I delight in seeing people eagerly sink their teeth into the soft, burning hot, yellowish vegetable, defying the scalding heat of the sweet, sticky juice oozing from under the crisp rind.

But then the fate of this low-priced, street food seemed to have been sealed when it was alleged that the drum-cum-oven had originally been used as a chemical container meaning that anything baked inside it may have been contaminated by the toxins released by the metal under high temperatures.

The news must have wowed consumers of this popular food, and I wonder how many people have been poisoned, and to what extent.

Do they need to take any antidote to expel the toxins they have been ingesting for so long?

So far, there has been no comforting response to answer the anxiety of consumers.

As a result, street vendors go on with their business, although now it may be somewhat slack due to the health warning.

Talking of the drum-cum-oven, I can't help thinking of some types of used batteries which have been labelled as pollutants that pose a grave threat to the environment.

However, a leading newspaper quoted an authoritative person as saying that as the mercury contained in these batteries makes up only one thousandth of the weight of the battery, the allegation that these used batteries are polluting the environment is unfounded.

Should we believe in what the paper says?

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