Poke Salad
How many of y'all know what poke salad is? The other day down at the waterin’ hole the gang and I got to discussing things like fishing, flying airplanes, losing money, good food and music. That’s how the topic of poke salad happened to come up.
Most of you probably recall the song "Poke Salad Annie,” but did you know that a young girl who harvested poke salad and sold it by the side of the road inspired the song? If you’re wondering what you’re missing, here’s the refrain and first part of Tony Joe White’s hit song, “Poke Salad Annie”:
If some of y'all never been down South too much…
I'm gonna tell you a little bit about this,
So that you'll understand what I'm talking about
Down there we have a plant
That grows out in the woods and the fields,
Looks somethin’ like a turnip green.
Everybody calls it Poke salad. Poke salad.
Used to know a girl that lived down there and
she'd go out in the evenings and pick a mess of it…
Carry it home and cook it for supper,
‘Cause that’s about all they had to eat,
But they did all right.
Down in Louisiana
Where the alligators grow so mean
There lived a girl that I swear to the world
Made the alligators look tame…
The song was first sung by White and later by Elvis Presley.
Phytolacca Americana; poke salad, poke salat, poke sallet or poke weed as it is sometimes called, is a large, handsome plant which grows wild throughout the eastern part of the United States, including East Texas. The plant is a perennial and at maturity reaches a height of 6-8 feet. It is strong smelling, has a poisonous root, a reddish purple stem and has tiny white flowers in grape-like clusters that turn into shiny dark purple berries. These berries are poisonous to humans, but birds love them...Bird poop produced by these berries will sure play hell with a fresh wash job on your truck.
Have you ever eaten poke salad? This delicacy, in the rural South, ranks right up there with collard greens, corn bread, grits, black-eyed peas and butter beans as a lip-smacking treat and best of all, it’s free and available to everyone. You probably can't buy it down at your neighborhood grocery store, but if you're lucky enough to know someone to show you what to look for, it's growing in the road ditches and along fence rows everywhere.
The only drawback to poke salad is that it's poisonous. The mature parts of the plant and the roots contain significant amounts of a violent but slow-acting emetic. Having said that, you're probably wondering why in the hell anyone would even consider eating it, but prepared properly, poke salad is not only safe but also delicious.
Only the youngest, tenderest sprouts of poke plants are good to eat and you'll need a seasoned veteran to help identify the plant for you at this stage. Unfortunately, while I can still identify the mature plants, it's been too many years for me to attempt to pick out the young ones. Anyway, after you locate the poke salad, you harvest a big old paper sack full of the young leaves...that’s what we call a “mess” of greens. You carry your mess of poke salad home and wash, stem and trim all the leaves
Bring a big pot of salted water to a boil and add the poke. Let boil for 10 minutes. Drain. Rinse leaves in a colander and rinse out the cooking pot. Add more water to the pot and bring to second boil. Add poke and boil for another 10 minutes. Drain. Rinse leaves again and rinse out the pot real good. Put the greens back in the pot along with a little bacon grease, some onion and a halved jalapeno pepper, if you have one. Boil the greens for another 10 minutes then put them in a colander and rinse them real good. Then squeeze out the excess water as you would with spinach. Now the poke salad is ready to prepare and eat in the same way you would spinach or any other green.
I've eaten poke salad quite a few times, mostly prepared by friends in East Texas and Louisiana . The way they usually served the poke salad was in dishes made with onions, peppers, bacon, sausage or ham, and scrambled eggs. It was customarily eaten for breakfast along with buttered toast or a big pan of cathead biscuits. I thought it had a savory taste, with a flavor like a cross between spinach and asparagus.
Poke salad is also prepared by placing the boiled and rinsed leaves in a cast iron skillet along with some chopped onion and fatback and adding some bacon grease and hot pepper sauce, then frying it until done. We had it fixed this way for lunch one time at the Martin place over in Saratoga . Miss Juanita Martin, or Auntie, as she was known to most everyone, served up the poke salad with some fried pork chops, a big old bowl of pinto beans, a skillet of cornbread, some sliced tomatoes fresh from her garden and some sliced onion soaked in vinegar...talk about good, it was all so good I like to have sat right there and foundered myself.
Then there’s the time about 60 years ago I ate some poke salad prepared on a camp fire by a bunch of Boy Scouts which I recall as being quite tasty...I also recall that it like to have killed about half of the scout troop, me included... But that’s a story for another time.
Some folks in the South, in addition to waxing poetic about the taste, swear by the medicinal properties of poke salad as well, saying things such as, “Poke salad is the best spring tonic you can find anywhere, it really gets your blood going.”
Finally, I figure I should tell y’all that while I was doing research for this piece, I discovered quite a few warnings, the gist of which is: “Don’t Eat Poke Salad!” This plant contains at least three different poisons and human and animal consumption is not advised. The poisons are contained in the roots, seeds, berries, and mature stems and leaves.
So the new wisdom is no matter how many times you've eaten poke salad prepared by your grandmother, Aunt Emma or other family and friends, and no matter how good it tasted, and no matter how "Southern" it is, we should all avoid eating this plant.
As an afterthought, why the hell would anybody want to eat pokeweed anyway, when there's chili, barbecue, gumbo, chicken fried steak, fried catfish and so many other good things to eat in the South. -- Why did I start writing this in the first place?
==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==
I have no idea what got me off on the poke salad tangent, but I think I’ve got it out of my system. At any rate, it’s time to call a wrap on another attempt to achieve literary competence. Obviously this effort was somewhat less than successful, but I anticipate my long awaited flash of brilliance any day now…just not today. Regardless, it’s time to put a (-30-) on this before I think up some more nice blather and poppycock for y’all to wade through.
As usual, thank y’all who hung in with me until the end. I appreciate your high tolerance for inferior writing and hope you’ll take the time and ping me an e-mail to tell me how you liked this one…Good, bad or indifferent, in fact, if you’d rather, you can comment on anything you feel like...argyle socks, derby hats, long underwear, chewing tobacco, wood stoves, truncated bowling shoes.
Enjoy your life and be careful to dodge the used chewing gum and dog piles as you skip down the pathways of life. Be sure to take time for at least one random act of kindness and if you see some poor soul who has lost their smile, share one of yours. Remember, when you think all your friends have left you, there’ll still be one hanging in there…that would be me. May God bless you and yours my brothers and sisters, and God Bless America !
==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==
My Pledge:
To maintain the highest standards of which I am capable or happen to feel like on any given day, to publish only information that is based on as much fact as I can find or make up and most of all to have as much fun as possible without offending too many readers. The facts expressed here belong to everyone, the opinions are mine, and it’s your job to figure out which are which.
==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==
Newt Harlan
© 06-08-09
-30-
How many of y'all know what poke salad is? The other day down at the waterin’ hole the gang and I got to discussing things like fishing, flying airplanes, losing money, good food and music. That’s how the topic of poke salad happened to come up.
Most of you probably recall the song "Poke Salad Annie,” but did you know that a young girl who harvested poke salad and sold it by the side of the road inspired the song? If you’re wondering what you’re missing, here’s the refrain and first part of Tony Joe White’s hit song, “Poke Salad Annie”:
If some of y'all never been down South too much…
I'm gonna tell you a little bit about this,
So that you'll understand what I'm talking about
Down there we have a plant
That grows out in the woods and the fields,
Looks somethin’ like a turnip green.
Everybody calls it Poke salad. Poke salad.
Used to know a girl that lived down there and
she'd go out in the evenings and pick a mess of it…
Carry it home and cook it for supper,
‘Cause that’s about all they had to eat,
But they did all right.
Down in Louisiana
Where the alligators grow so mean
There lived a girl that I swear to the world
Made the alligators look tame…
The song was first sung by White and later by Elvis Presley.
Phytolacca Americana; poke salad, poke salat, poke sallet or poke weed as it is sometimes called, is a large, handsome plant which grows wild throughout the eastern part of the United States, including East Texas. The plant is a perennial and at maturity reaches a height of 6-8 feet. It is strong smelling, has a poisonous root, a reddish purple stem and has tiny white flowers in grape-like clusters that turn into shiny dark purple berries. These berries are poisonous to humans, but birds love them...Bird poop produced by these berries will sure play hell with a fresh wash job on your truck.
Have you ever eaten poke salad? This delicacy, in the rural South, ranks right up there with collard greens, corn bread, grits, black-eyed peas and butter beans as a lip-smacking treat and best of all, it’s free and available to everyone. You probably can't buy it down at your neighborhood grocery store, but if you're lucky enough to know someone to show you what to look for, it's growing in the road ditches and along fence rows everywhere.
The only drawback to poke salad is that it's poisonous. The mature parts of the plant and the roots contain significant amounts of a violent but slow-acting emetic. Having said that, you're probably wondering why in the hell anyone would even consider eating it, but prepared properly, poke salad is not only safe but also delicious.
Only the youngest, tenderest sprouts of poke plants are good to eat and you'll need a seasoned veteran to help identify the plant for you at this stage. Unfortunately, while I can still identify the mature plants, it's been too many years for me to attempt to pick out the young ones. Anyway, after you locate the poke salad, you harvest a big old paper sack full of the young leaves...that’s what we call a “mess” of greens. You carry your mess of poke salad home and wash, stem and trim all the leaves
Bring a big pot of salted water to a boil and add the poke. Let boil for 10 minutes. Drain. Rinse leaves in a colander and rinse out the cooking pot. Add more water to the pot and bring to second boil. Add poke and boil for another 10 minutes. Drain. Rinse leaves again and rinse out the pot real good. Put the greens back in the pot along with a little bacon grease, some onion and a halved jalapeno pepper, if you have one. Boil the greens for another 10 minutes then put them in a colander and rinse them real good. Then squeeze out the excess water as you would with spinach. Now the poke salad is ready to prepare and eat in the same way you would spinach or any other green.
I've eaten poke salad quite a few times, mostly prepared by friends in East Texas and Louisiana . The way they usually served the poke salad was in dishes made with onions, peppers, bacon, sausage or ham, and scrambled eggs. It was customarily eaten for breakfast along with buttered toast or a big pan of cathead biscuits. I thought it had a savory taste, with a flavor like a cross between spinach and asparagus.
Poke salad is also prepared by placing the boiled and rinsed leaves in a cast iron skillet along with some chopped onion and fatback and adding some bacon grease and hot pepper sauce, then frying it until done. We had it fixed this way for lunch one time at the Martin place over in Saratoga . Miss Juanita Martin, or Auntie, as she was known to most everyone, served up the poke salad with some fried pork chops, a big old bowl of pinto beans, a skillet of cornbread, some sliced tomatoes fresh from her garden and some sliced onion soaked in vinegar...talk about good, it was all so good I like to have sat right there and foundered myself.
Then there’s the time about 60 years ago I ate some poke salad prepared on a camp fire by a bunch of Boy Scouts which I recall as being quite tasty...I also recall that it like to have killed about half of the scout troop, me included... But that’s a story for another time.
Some folks in the South, in addition to waxing poetic about the taste, swear by the medicinal properties of poke salad as well, saying things such as, “Poke salad is the best spring tonic you can find anywhere, it really gets your blood going.”
Finally, I figure I should tell y’all that while I was doing research for this piece, I discovered quite a few warnings, the gist of which is: “Don’t Eat Poke Salad!” This plant contains at least three different poisons and human and animal consumption is not advised. The poisons are contained in the roots, seeds, berries, and mature stems and leaves.
So the new wisdom is no matter how many times you've eaten poke salad prepared by your grandmother, Aunt Emma or other family and friends, and no matter how good it tasted, and no matter how "Southern" it is, we should all avoid eating this plant.
As an afterthought, why the hell would anybody want to eat pokeweed anyway, when there's chili, barbecue, gumbo, chicken fried steak, fried catfish and so many other good things to eat in the South. -- Why did I start writing this in the first place?
==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==
I have no idea what got me off on the poke salad tangent, but I think I’ve got it out of my system. At any rate, it’s time to call a wrap on another attempt to achieve literary competence. Obviously this effort was somewhat less than successful, but I anticipate my long awaited flash of brilliance any day now…just not today. Regardless, it’s time to put a (-30-) on this before I think up some more nice blather and poppycock for y’all to wade through.
As usual, thank y’all who hung in with me until the end. I appreciate your high tolerance for inferior writing and hope you’ll take the time and ping me an e-mail to tell me how you liked this one…Good, bad or indifferent, in fact, if you’d rather, you can comment on anything you feel like...argyle socks, derby hats, long underwear, chewing tobacco, wood stoves, truncated bowling shoes.
Enjoy your life and be careful to dodge the used chewing gum and dog piles as you skip down the pathways of life. Be sure to take time for at least one random act of kindness and if you see some poor soul who has lost their smile, share one of yours. Remember, when you think all your friends have left you, there’ll still be one hanging in there…that would be me. May God bless you and yours my brothers and sisters, and God Bless America !
==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==
My Pledge:
To maintain the highest standards of which I am capable or happen to feel like on any given day, to publish only information that is based on as much fact as I can find or make up and most of all to have as much fun as possible without offending too many readers. The facts expressed here belong to everyone, the opinions are mine, and it’s your job to figure out which are which.
==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==*==
Newt Harlan
© 06-08-09
-30-