Poke Weed

[heavyhitterokra]

I just happened onto this video this afternoon and realized that for some reason we don't have a thread on Poke Weed.  

I've hesitated adding it to the 'leafy greens' category before, because if you don't cook it properly, poke will clean you out like Rotor-Rooter, but that's probably not an entirely bad thing healthwise, it's just not something you'd want to happen unexpectedly. 

This video goes into depth about how to identify this plant, at what stage to harvest it, and how to prepare it.

When I was a kid, we'd pick poke weed by the 16' foot horse trailer load to sell to Griffins Canning Company.  They only had one rule there, "No stalks larger in diameter than a nickel".  Poke is prolific in this area and really loves disturbed soil, so you'll often find them growing in abundance in dozer piles, fence rows, and bar ditches.

[macmex]

I love poke weed! As a kid my parents would have me cut it by the sack and bring it home. Mom would blanch and freeze it for use later in the year. This was in NJ, where Southern cuisine was pretty much unknown but we learned about it through Ewell Gibbons' book Stalking the Wild Asparagus. So I grew up eating it.

I did find that's it's good to be careful about who you share it with. Around the age of 15, I remember sharing some with a family from church. A few hours later I received an irate phone call from the mother of the family, claiming that I had poisoned her son. It wasn't so. I'm sure he'd gotten into something else. Nevertheless, I made a note that one should be careful about sharing stuff like that. (Be sure to explain about double boiling and always recommend that a person eat just a little bit, as a trial, before eating much.)

The women folk in my family have developed a sensitivity to poke. No matter how we cook it, it gives them a histamine reaction in their mouths when they eat some. So, when I eat it, I just pick some for myself and cook up a huge plate of it, making it the main part of the meal for me.

[hmoosek]

Oh yeah, ate it in scrambled eggs as a youngster. My uncle knew how to cook it. I spotted a bunch of it growing a few weeks ago in the parking lot of a catfish restaurant. My wife didn’t know what it was, but my Mom did. She was surprised I knew what it was.