本文耙梳過去臺灣早期詩歌中對番薯的描寫，並分成來源、環境與社會功能三節，以說明過去臺灣人對番薯的想像，期能思考番薯的引入對臺灣與臺灣人的意義與價值，並將其置於哥倫布大交換之脈絡來加以理解。 在這些詩歌中，番薯原先被視為一種形象良好的「外來嘉植」而廣受讚頌。不過，正由於番薯入臺後就被移民構成的主流社會利用為常糧，久而因其易植多收的特性而出現因量大價微、且形象「輕賤化」的趨勢：既揭櫫其廉價特性，又與低下階層或貧窮產生連結。 番薯對於環境的適應能力強，當來到臺灣的移民們能運用番薯，也連帶增加了人在惡劣環境中生根存活的能力；而臺灣漢移民的先驅者帶著番薯來到臺灣開墾，遂使臺灣的土地利用趨於極致。這些過程也可視為是美洲高產能作物的引入，鼓勵中國人蓬勃開拓與利用土壤的一個側面。 昀後，臺灣移民社會對番薯的認識與利用，仍然受到原鄉社會的影響；但從詩歌中所反映出臺灣番薯品種的多元來源管窺，在大航海時代開始後，臺灣既倚賴中國連結至新成形的全球性網路，但也有自己直接的連結途徑。

Sifting through the descriptions of sweet potatoes in early Taiwanese poetry, this paper attempts to explain how early elites on Taiwan understood the origins, environment, and social functions of sweet potatoes. The meaning and value of this crop may be seen against the background of the introduction of New World crops to Taiwan and the rest of East Asia after the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Firstly, these poems regard the sweet potato as a kind of foreign food plant, with a good taste and beneficial social functions. The sweet potato became so important because the early settlers utilized sweet potatoes as their staple food. However, the sweet potato’s image gradually declined with lower prices and came to be associated with poverty, due to its capacity for high yields on poor land. Next, when the early settlers moving from China to Taiwan were able to use sweet potatoes, they also reinforced their ability to survive in a wild, harsh environment. As the poems show, the early Taiwanese settlers brought sweet potatoes to Taiwan and exploited Taiwan’s lands to the utmost. Such a process could be part of a wider picture, in which the introduction of highly productive New World crops encouraged Chinese to enthusiastically open up uncultivated areas which were too marginal to be sustainable. Finally, even though the understanding of how to use sweet potatoes in Taiwanese immigrant society was influenced by their original homeland in China, sweet potatoes actually came to Taiwan by two different routes, one directly and one from the settlers’ original homeland in China, so Taiwan was directly connected to a newly developed global network that came into being during the age of Navigation.