...Wild Foods...Poke Salad...

...Poke Salad was a childhood springtime staple...Grandma always made it and Nanny and Mom did too...we had an old brush pile in the middle of our horse pasture redolent with pokeweed...Phytolacca americana... ...we were warned as children that the plant and berries were poisonous...and never tried them raw...although the plentiful berries are beautiful...I wonder if they'd make a good dye...

...this is the area below the Church where they pile up the leftover earth from the graves...

...and there are plenty of healthy young pokeweed plants...

...so I harvested a bunch of leaves...

...the smaller plants with the tenderest leaves are best for this springtime 'salad'...

...there were lots of bees about...I almost stepped on this bumblebee...

...then over by the road...there is a plethora of wild onions...or maybe wild chives...

...I pulled up a handful intending to cook them with the pokeweed...

...washed the leaves well...

...the onions smell really strong too...they're really pretty...

...I just chopped those up...

...and put them in a bowl...the Man came into the kitchen...and said that he did not want those strong onions with his greens...so I put them aside for another use...

...and put the greens in a large pot of water for the first boiling...

...first cook and rinse...

...and then again...a second time...I called Mom...and she said that she only ever did two cook/rinse cycles...and that's probably sufficient for these young tender leaves...later in the season the leaves will be more poisonous...

...the second time around...

...then rinsed and drained...I seasoned them with some salt, pepper and vegan butter and cooked them until they were fairly dry...

...so I had the greens (without the wild onions) with some beans and both sweet and regular potatoes...

...and then I scrambled the smelly wild onions with some tofu for breakfast the next morning...they were quite mild and not at all smelly when cooked that way...and they were delicious...

...so...have you ever tried poke salad?...

~Have a lovely day!