Published: May 20, 2008 04:50 pm         

Don't poke fun at tasty plant

W

JOPLIN, Mo. — It might not be for everyone but for some, pokeweed is a sort of forgotten delicacy.

“It grows wild and for most people, if you grew up out in the country, then you grew up with it,” said Linda Lane, owner and operator of Meadowlark Gardens in Mount Vernon, who sells wild pokeweed at the Webb City Farmers’ Market. “It tastes a lot like spinach.”

Lane said preparing pokeweed is simple and can create a dish with a great flavor.

She prepares pokeweed by placing the plant’s leaves in a pot and bringing the water to a boil, then dumping the water and filling the pot again and bringing that to a boil. Once that water is dumped and refilled, other ingredients such as onions, salt and other greens are added as the water comes to a boil for the third time.

When picking the plant, Lane said, there are certain things to take into consideration.

“If the poke get higher then 6 inches then I don’t eat them,” she said. “You want to make sure they are young and tender. I usually bring seven or eight bundles (to the farmers’ market) and I usually sell out, so there are people that like it — usually people that grew up eating it.”

While on most dinner tables it might not be taking the place of green beans or mashed potatoes, there is a small but loyal group of people who enjoy eating poke.

“Everybody cooks poke their own way. A lot of people boil it and then mix it up with a little vinegar and oil, sometimes they put a little sugar in it,” said Jeff Cantrell, a conservation education agent with the Missouri Department of Conservation. “I remember eating it as a child. My grandparents would cook it up every spring. It was traditionally a very common dish. Now most people don’t eat it, but it is like turnip greens or spinach that you would eat on the side.”

Cantrell said several plants are harvested in the wild around this time of year and cooked as greens to make a side dish — such as dock weed and lambs quarters —but there is a danger to simply picking the plants and eating them. People should know what they are doing before they eat anything that they pick in nature.

Poke can be spotted rather easily. It has large brown leaves with pointed tips that alternate up the plant stem. The stem is thick and will grow dark and become purple with age. The berries will grow out off of the stem later in the year, usually around August.

The roots and berries of pokeweed are poisonous and should never be eaten, Cantrell said. While the leaves of the plant do carry a small amount of the poison as well, boiling them will make them safe to eat.

Pokeweed can be found growing wild and yields greens that can be eaten from April to June.

“Poke can be found everywhere,” Cantrell said. “I have it growing along the driveway of my farm. A lot of time it can be found in idle areas in people’s gardens, growing along fence rows and in open areas.”



Poke salad

1 to 2 pounds poke leaves

6 to 8 slices bacon

1 large onion

2 eggs

Pick and wash poke leaves, bring to a rapid boil for 20 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold tepid water. Bring to a rapid boil, starting with cold water, for a second boil for 20 minutes. Again drain and rinse with cold tepid water. Now for the third time, bring cold tepid water to a rapid boil for 20 more minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water. Let drain completely.

Meanwhile, fry bacon and save drippings; set aside. Clean and cut onion in quarters. Take drained poke salad and cook in fry pan that you used to fry bacon. Add 1/4 cup of drippings from bacon. Add onion, 1/4 cup of water, salt to taste. Fry until onions are sautéed, about 15 to 20 minutes. Serve and garnish with hard-boiled egg and bacon.

Source: www.cook.com



Pokeweed sprout pickle

1 quart vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon mixed pickling spices

Pokeweed sprouts

Boil some vinegar with 1 tablespoon each of salt, sugar and mixed pickling spices added to each quart. Pour boiling water over the sprouts and let it stand 20 minutes. Drain and cover with fresh boiling water, this time letting it stand only three minutes. Drain quickly, pack the hot sprouts loosely into jars, cover with the boiling vinegar and seal at once. These will be ready in about a month.

Source: www.bio.brandeis.edu



Dustin Shipman writes for The Joplin (Mo.) Globe.