When you cook, and even when you just eat, dishes, i.e., food, are divided into two groups. Dishes that are sweet and dishes that are savory. Every food is one or the other. Savory sounds fancy. But Potato chips are savory. Ice cream sundaes are sweet. See how that works? I read that in an old cook book. So people may not know what you mean when you say that. Maybe we should start using those words again. They are useful words. Sweet v. savory.
Some things can be both sweet and savory, they're just labels. You mention potatoes. What about sweet potatoes? In today's culinary world, sweet or savory is just a description, and supermarkets segregate the sweets into certain aisles.
Plenty of individual dishes are both sweet and savory though. Chicken and waffles, for example. Pizza with pineapple. Honey and sweet potato fries. Not to mention the tons of snacks that combine the two flavor profiles. Here in the US most savory foods--usually processed--are pumped full of enough sweeteners that people from other countries find American foods unnecessarily sweet. Sweet and savory are often paired together. And for good reason--it's delicious!
Apparently to get humans addicted to any product you only need add sugar, fat and salt. Or perhaps caffeine, sugar, more caffeine and more sugar (like energy drinks).
I think the useful distinction between sweet and savory is what you are craving at the moment. It could be sweet, it could be savory, it could be both! I really like both.
We used to frequent a pizza place that served Chicago-styel (deep dish) pizza, and they always had a squeeze bottle of honey sitting on each table. After you eat the majority of the slice, just drizzle a little honey on the crust with sauce and it's like dessert. The sweet and savory go well together - and you don't need the honey to get addicted to pizza
