301435 Tue Jan 31 10:06:10 -0800 2006 12 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1680877 I know many of you have heard this old R&B song but how many of you have eaten poke salad or "poke salit"? The pokeweed grows wild throughout the south and perhaps in other areas as well. I have never seen it sold in stores and perhaps for good reason. As a child my mother would often ask me to go out in the woods and pick a mess of poke salit. In the south "mess" means a bunch and usually in the context of greens. I knew to pick only the leaves as the rest of the weed is poisonous. The dark red berries are beautiful but poisonous as well( although I've seen crows eat them ). Poke salad is cooked and seasoned like collards or turnip greens and is just as tasty. It tastes a lot like spinach only better. My mother always served poke salit with sliced boiled eggs on top. I would not eat the leaves unless cooked as they may be toxic as well. Tue Jan 31 10:06:10 -0800 2006 0 Paul in S.C. 1 1680879 I didn't grow up in the south, but I did grow up mostly in the country with old world parents and we ate a lot of "weeds": lambsquarter, poke, chicory, nasturtiums (which grew like weeds where we lived). Also wild mushrooms, wild berries, nuts... I miss that feeling of living off the land. Tue Jan 31 10:42:18 -0800 2006 1680877 0 butterfly 2 1680883 How valued I felt as a small child to be able to contribute to what our family ate. Picking wild berries that I had discovered on our farm was always a thrill as I knew a pie was soon to follow. Wish children of today could have such experiences. Tue Jan 31 11:05:07 -0800 2006 1680879 0 Paul in S.C. 3 1680901 Children of today do have those experiences. At least mine do. Tue Jan 31 12:32:12 -0800 2006 1680883 0 MSPD 2 1680896 And then there are nettles -- but you have to put on gloves to harvest those. Tue Jan 31 11:59:58 -0800 2006 1680879 0 Sharuf 1 1680880 I cooked poke every spring when I lived in St. Louis. I knew of several vacant lots, and overgrown yards where my "spring tonic" grew. It's tremendously hardy. I warned the kids off, since it's pretty with its berries, but at best could make a person sick. I'd always pick the first brand new shoots, and maybe go back one more time for one more harvest. Blanching a couple of times removes some bitterness. If we get into preparation, let's move this whole thing to the Home Cooking board! Tue Jan 31 10:45:41 -0800 2006 1680877 0 Pat Hammond 1 1680884 I have a community garden plot in central Los Angeles and a beautiful weed started growing along the edge of it late last spring. It didn't seem to be doing much spreading (and I certainly have enough of these weeds to keep me busy) so I left it in. After a few weeks, one of my fellow gardeners stopped by to chat. He's from around Texarkana, TX (but has lived in LA for many years). He asked me if I knew what I had there and told me it was poke. He then went on to describe how to harvest it and prepare it - emphasizing heavily the need to blanch several times. He did a charming, but scary imitation of his brother eating poke that hadn't been blanched - lots of nice twitching. I was curious about it after that and looked it up online. There is a fair amount of info out there especially from agricultural extension services. All parts of the plant (not just the berries) contain toxins and can be harmful. Blanching may help, but it's still a risky thing to be eating any part of. I ended up leaving the plant in my garden until it produced berries - they are attractive! But I came to realize it was making some other gardeners a bit agitated. Having a toxic plant on the edge of your garden isn't really all that neighborly - so I took it out. I see the plant from time to time along freeway exits now, but I don't think it'll ever gain a foothold in my garden. Too much other good stuff to grow. Link: http://www.aces.edu/dept/extcomm/newspaper/june21b02.html Tue Jan 31 11:05:57 -0800 2006 1680877 0 ks 1 1680885 I have a friend in Lexington, NC whose grandmother not only ate the leaves but cut the stalks into sections, processed them in jars and made "Poke Pickle" out of them. Tue Jan 31 11:14:53 -0800 2006 1680877 0 Jimmy Buffet 1 1680887 Its funny but back in the days when I grew up, there were class stratifications even among the poor and hard-up. Some folks who ate poke were looked down upon by those who ate dandelion greens or such. Sort of a greens pecking order. One other "salit" that we used to pick was creecy salad. These little greens used to grow along railroad tracks near some property we owned. Weeds to some no doubt, but a great addition to a working man's table of pinto beans, cabbage, cornbread, and such.. I have seen "Creecy Greens" sold canned in local stores here. Only one brand, though. Tue Jan 31 11:19:28 -0800 2006 1680877 0 Jimmy Buffet 2 1680902 When I was a very little girl and my mom was teaching school in the Los Angeles area and my father was in school, my great grandmother came out from southern AZ to take care of my sister and me. She took us on a walk one afternoon and noticed wild mustard growing in a vacant lot. When my mom got home that afternoon my ggm told her it was there and that we should all go pick some for our supper that night. As they were picking the mustard a neighbors kid cam by and asked what we were doing and my mother said that we were picking our supper. My mom got a call later that evening from the neighbor kids mom and she wanted to know what we had for dinner, and my momtold her mustard greens and cornbread and wanted to know why. The neighbor replied that her son had come home and wanted to know if the people next door were real poor. And, of course his mom said no worse off than anyone else around here and why? The kid reported that we had been down at the vacant lot picking weeds for our supper. Tue Jan 31 12:33:12 -0800 2006 1680887 0 Candy 1 1680974 There are some plate-lunch places in Nashville that still offer "poke sallet" in season. I've prepared it only once from scratch - boiling the greens in three changes of water, then squeezing them dry and frying in bacon grease with some egg - and a couple of times from canned ones. I think both the Glory and Allen labels have them in cans. I don't know what I like about them so much - there's no big flavor thing I can pin down at all - but once I get a forkful in my mouth I suddenly cannot stop eating until it's all gone. And it sure isn't that I grew up eating this, either. Wed Feb 01 00:21:19 -0800 2006 1680877 0 Will Owen 2 1681057 Amen Thu Feb 02 08:27:18 -0800 2006 1680974 0 Paul in S.C. 2 1681123 Now you have got me wanting some. My mother would have never prepared it. We were very poor but to her, poke was reserved for those of a class below. The very least she could have done, though, was to get out and kill the plants and give the leaves to old Miz Gillespie, who lived next door, and loved the stuff, as getting rid of the plants would have kept the birds from eating the berries and then pooping purple on my mother's sheets which she had placed on the clothes line. Much cussin' when that would happen. Thu Feb 02 15:35:20 -0800 2006 1680974 0 Jimmy Buffet