It is. And my grandmother and her siblings (who I was very familiar with poke from) were the children of sharecroppers in the 1920s. They called “survival food” “food”.
Ah yes, I’ve gone hiking with him and eating things along the way. Nearly 50 years ago, though.
Yep, I’m only familiar with poke sallet from my Appalachian elderly relatives (i.e. the ones who were elderly when I was young, meaning they were born in the latter half of the 19th century up through the early 20th), I have never deigned to try eating it, but it was certainly something mountain folk had no qualms about.
Oh boy, yes, all of this. I had one that I let go one year and it was a huge plant, way taller than me and big all around. It’s amazing how big it got in one summer. That was probably 8 or 10 years ago now and I STILL have to cut it down, I just did it 2 weeks ago and filled half a yardwaste bag. One spring, I put an opaque black planter over the new shoots and weighted it down with some bricks. I peeked under it a few times, the stems were very pale and twisted but that year of no grown didn’t kill it and it came right back the next spring. I’m sure that root is down there plotting another comeback.
That said, it’s quite a pretty plant. Large leaves, reddish fleshy limbs, striking glossy berry clusters.
Poke Salad is a thing:
Note that you’re supposed to cook it, not eat it raw.
Also from that article:
Which jibes with what has already been posted.
And finally: can’t mention poke salad without mentioning this:
Came for this. Was not disappointed.
It could be almost any of them. I would go with red chokecherries. There were everywhere when I lived on the farm, and they produced a nice red warpaint-like stain if you crushed them. Everyone knew not to eat them.
Choke-cherries are edible. They’re astingent and a bit sour, though.
No mention of polk salad Annie? A hit performed by Tony Joe White. Elvis sang it in concerts.
Johnny mentions using the berries for war paint.
There’s a big embedded link to it four posts prior to yours.
I must have scrolled past it.
Johnny mentions smashing the berries on his sisters back. Another source that mentions kids playing with it.
Now, what the heck is a poke sack?
Annie collected poke salad in a poke sack.
I found poke sack references to the Civil War.
This seems fairly authentic.
Okay, we’ve covered painting with pokeberry juice. What about this? When I was a kid we would find leaves on plants with orange powder on the bottom of them. We would pick the leaves and press them against our skin to make orange, veiny leaf-shaped “tattoos”. Anyone else do this?
When my brother was 15 years old he made wine by fermenting chokecherries. After aging a month, it was good enough to get a buzz, but only if you could swallow more than a teaspoon at a time.
My mom would make a cordial-like drink out of them by macerating them in grain alcohol, then bringing the mixture down to under 80 proof with water and simple syrup and aging further, IIRC. You would only do a shot at a time, which made it palatable.
I might like poke salad if it was seasoned correctly with pork fat and a ham hock.
I like turnip greens if the turnips are diced small and seasoned.
I find Collard greens more difficult. I’ll eat a few bites to be polite.
Spinach is my favorite greens. I usually buy it frozen and season myself.
I thought greens were to be cooked with a glug of vinegar?
~VOW
I simmer collards a long while, eventually adding some vinegar, bacon, pepper flakes, Tabasco.
Damn they’re good!
I’ve watched a Youtube video on preparing juice from poke berries. While poke leaves and shoots are somewhat toxic if not prepared properly, only the roots are considered highly toxic. The berries are seen as the least toxic. I’m not sure why anyone feels compelled to use them for juice, but I guess some folks just don’t want anything to go to waste. At any rate, the juice from the berries is combined with a generous volume of apple juice. I’m guessing that that is where the flavor comes from in the final product. While I love poke as a vegetable, I’ve not been tempted to do anything with the berries. Let the birds have them.
Pokeweed roots are the most toxic part of the plant, but it doesn’t take many berries to cause trouble.
“Pokeberries are found in grape-like clusters on tall perennials with purple-red stems. Eating several berries can cause pain, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.”
Birds eating fermented pokeweed berries have gotten intoxicated. You don’t want a bunch of drunk birds staggering around your yard, flying into tree trunks etc.