After a double boil. My mom would add bacon grease to a cast iron skillet and add the double boils poke to the skillet after a quick fry she would pour scrambled eggs and mix until the eggs where cooked. It looked like green scrambled eggs! She claimed if ya ate a couple batches every year it would improve your immune system. I am over fifty years old and still enjoy it every year!
Do you mean that she put raw eggs into the skillet with the poke salad/grease and fry 'em up that way, or fry the eggs separately first, and _then_ add them into the other skillet?
My Cherokee family consider this one of their favorite Spring dishes. They make Walesi-pokeweed (cooked twice) fried up with wild onions and mushrooms. The wild birds I feed gave me the gift of pokeweed in my yard, so I’ll be trying this!
I've been harvesting and eating poke for over 50 years and I can assure you that poke can be eaten when it is bigger than what you are recommending...i usually harvest when the plant is about a foot to a foot and a half tall and have NEVER had a problem... Just fyi...
Poke weed as long as the stalks have not become sponge. I cut the stalks parboiled the stalks, take off the outer thin skin, like you would a tomato, chop up like okra batter an deep fried. Leaves are great for breakfast. When cooking for breakfast mix beaten up eggs in. Stalks taste like asparagus. I love editable weeds.
As long as the leaves don't have a lot of red in the veins you're good to go. I don't boil it and pour the water off, I just stir fry it in bacon grease. I HAVE gotten sick once from eating a ton of it without removing the stem that runs down the center of the leaf. It gave me the screaming squirts and a tingling sensation all over but keep in mind I ate BIG meals of it 3 days in a row.
@@entrepreneursfinest well I've always boiled it in 2 waters but your stir fry method sounds really good! I will definitely try it your way next spring!
@@steventuck1524 It's really good that way. You could still give it a boil and then press out the water through a strainer. I don't use the really old leaves and I try to get the plants that are shaded. I'm not sure if that makes a huge difference but it just "feels" right lol. I love them and any other green fried down in oil and if you throw some crispy bacon in at the end it truly is excellent. Keeps just a touch of the bite in taste that you can lose in boiling.
My mother cooked poke greens but she also cooked the young stems. She tried to pick them before the leaves began to open up. She sliced the stems in disks and rolled them in seasoned cornmeal and fried them in a skillet. It tasted like fried okra.
Excellent treatment of a oft maligned subject matter! Folks get mad at me for letting my poke grow. Accuse me of spreading death and destruction. And this is in the Ozarks, where it’s been consumed for centuries, if not longer. Thank you for injecting some rationality to the equation. 😊
Oh yes , from spring to fall, beautiful ornamental ❤ Spring Tonic (growth tips) White blood cell stimulant; mimics leukemia !?! And fantastic with 🥩&🥚’s 🕊
Some folks just can't eat it. I've tried to eat it. I can't, 2 of my children can't. My hubby and 1 son can. I've even tried boiling and discarding water up to 5 times! With that many times, what is the point of even trying. lol.... Eating it HURTS. Gut pains worse than any flu. It gets irradiated on my property. Just eat spinach or any other green that isn't painful when eaten. It won't kill you but It can make you wish for death. lol
It would drive one of my uncles crazy that I allowed poke to grow, thistles and yellow dock all over my yard and flower beds. Caught him attempting to round up it all… told him I use it all and not to spray in the yard.
I've been eating poke for over 50yrs. When the stalks are young and not woody, I cut them up and fry like you do okra and I don't boil the leaves twice. Nothing taste like poke! 😊 Delicious.
Selah: Please give the recipe for how you prepare poke for frying. A neighbor fixed a dish of poke and scrambled eggs. It was delicious! Thanks in advance for your effort. 🙂
@@carolinegray7510 I'm glad you liked the poke! It's good for you, too. When the stalks are about a foot to a foot and a half high, peel off outer layer. Is real easy to do, just start at one end and strip it off, then cut them up in one or so inches long. Use equal parts of stirred together flour and cornmeal for batter. Roll in batter and fry on medium heat until a nice brown in oil. (Not butter.) About 5 or 6 minutes or until tender. Salt to taste. Enjoy!!!
I am 65, I learned to harvest many wild plants from my grandparents and a very knowledgeable older lady. I enjoyed your description of poke. Personally, I have a chainlink fence around my yard were I have maintained poke for over thirty years. My favorite recipe involves poke and sting nettles greens as a side dish. Thank you for sharing ❤.
I am 43 years old and was raised in a hollow in WV. My mom loved poke and could eat it everyday if she had it. She never boiled it and picked it when it was small and larger in size but always said it was better the smaller the plants are. As long as the stems weren’t too red or too thick,she ate it. She taught me to cook it the way she did. She washed it really well and cut the bottoms off and cut up the leaves and small stalks and coated them with some raw eggs so the cornmeal and onions would stick to the greens and she would add salt and pepper and fried it up in bacon grease until all of the greens were fried and had a crispy brown coating from the corn meal. It was delicious! As I got older I realized that I liked to add a little flour to the cornmeal and some wild ramps to mine to give some extra flavor and it’s even more delicious. My mom had 12 children and none of us died from eating poke. It gave us the runs if we ate too much of it but that’s probably because she didn’t boil it and rinse it 3 times and we ate bowls of it at a time. I always thought it was just high in fiber. Lol I’m just now learning more about poke and never even knew it could be so poisonous. I do remember my mom saying that she didn’t think babies were supposed to eat it until after they were a year old and said some people told her that it could make you sick but mom said it never bothered her and she was raised poor and had to eat something. I did use to think the berries were poisonous but now my brother tells me that he eats the berries for his arthritis. Lol Maybe he just eats a few at a time. I’m pretty sure he freezes them in ice cube trays to preserve them so he can eat a few at a time.
I agree with @mayamachine, just swallow a berry every day once they're ripe. I put the rest in the freezer and your "itises" will go away... I also eat one raw clove of garlic every Monday Wednesday and Friday (minced and left to set for at least 10 minutes in the morning before chewing it up. After I eat it I wait 10 minutes and have a tall glass hot green tea so that I don't knock everyone around me out, lol. It seems to keep me healthy between the two of them. I'll be 73 shortly 😳
And I was going to tear up the patch that started growing in my backyard!! Even my reliable foraging book said it was completely dangerous, this video was very informational, I will have to check out the books you recommended
If poke salad was poisonous, well when handled properly, my mom would’ve been dead in the 40’s. They grew up on it in the hills of NC. I didn’t know Elvis sang about it though…..
This is now my favourite foraging channel. I really enjoy the history you add to your videos and the amount of knowledge and clarity making it easier for a novice like me to understand.
When I was about six or seven, my great-grandmother told me what she was making for dinner. "Poke Salat", she said. She had a deep Texas accent and I thought she was saying "Pork Salad", in her Southern style. I asked her to repeat it so many times, I think it made her half mad at me. LOL! I was still so confused. I could only imagine a pork chop on a bed of lettuce, and that didn't sound like her kind of cooking. But, she showed me the pot of greens boiling on the stove, and spelled it for me, and then I understood. She used to fry it after boiling, with onions and either salt pork or chopped bacon. I enjoyed eating it as a child, but probably never would have ventured a taste, had she not been the cook. She would add Hot Pepper Vinegar to her own bowl of Poke Salat. Thanks for the great info!!!
Hi , I just found your channel. I grew up eating poke in East Tennessee.My mother made poke paddies with cornmeal,flour,onions and bacon, I haven’t had poke in years. I can’t wait until next April (late April).Thanks for being up a wonderful memory. I can remember harvesting poke with my Mother and Grandmothers.
I have poke salad growing in my yard . My husband grew up on a farm in PA. He told me his family used to eat it all the time but he didn’t bc he doesn’t like any greens. I asked ppl about it and most said they didn’t know anything about it. Thank you for such an informative video. It’s going to be a poke salad spring in 2023!
Me too! I have a huge plant I have been cutting back every year. I have been eating all the other edible "weeds" on the property.. but everything I researched said poke was not edible. I am SO happy I came across this video! Looking forward to collecting an abundance of greens this spring. Life, Love & Peace to ALL, 🙋♀️🌻👩🌾🏕
So glad I found this channel. I knew about poke salad but I was always worried about not prepping it properly. Now I can rest assured and enjoy another wild food.
Thank you for taking the time to explain your vast wealth of healthy experience. I have poke growing all over the place and now feel extremely confident in harvesting and consuming it safely. I really appreciate your thoroughness, the time you took to video the actual plant in many cycles of growth to the process of cooking it safely. Amazing hard work and excellent presentation! 100% A+
Fully mature leaves are edible. The stem down the middle is tough and is best cut out, but the leaves are huge so it is not difficult. If you don't break the shoot off at the root multiple shoots grow off the stem which results in more shoots, and a massive poke bush. No harm in that however. More leaves to eat.
Nutritional Value of Pokeweek per Wikipedia: "a 100g serving of pokeweed contains 20 calories and 3.1 grams of carbohydrates, 1.6 grams of sugars, 1.5 grams of dietary fiber, 0.4 grams of fat, 2.3 grams of protein, and is a rich source of vitamin A, vitamin B2, vitamin C, vitamin K, and manganese. It contains low levels of vitamin B1, vitamin B6, iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium." - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytolacca_americana#Nutrition
Just cover in water and cook it, drain the water off and add fresh water, cook it again! Yummy, tastes a good bit like Spinach. Poke Salat is extremely healthy and is very high in vitamins and minerals.
This is THE best video on Poke... complete with Elvis from my favorite Vegas show wearing my fav Elvis jumpsuit. But all that aside, I appreciate your time and attention to the value of knowing how to prepare and eat this amazing green!
You can harvest poke leaves at any stage. Just boil twice. My grandparents on both sides lived into their 90s, eating all stages of this plant all their lives.
as a teen i lived in a small apartment building on a bluff overlooking the fall line of the james river.There was a summer field of overgrown pokeweed, blackberries and wild lettuce that grew up high on a hillside in between the leveled asphalt parking lot and the lower lying field that comprised a small park below. There was an 100 year old neighborhood behind this park and I remember meeting a spry couple in their 80s (who lived in one of the nearby old houses) in late july out picking the youngest leaves of the pokeweed at the top of the tall plants closest to the dark, hanging berry-clusters, and filling bags and baskets with them. I asked them about it and they told me theyd been doing such all summer for years on end and explained the process of picking the youngest helathiest leaves and how to double boil them and rinse them. I really love cooked spinach, collards. arugula, mustard greens and chard and Im really stoked to try Pokeweed for the 1st time.
I had an herbalist friend who dried whole ripe poke berries, and recommended taking 2-3 per day for arthritis. They didn't help my pain, but they didn't hurt me, either. She sold these in a local co-op store and elsewhere with no problems, as far as I know.
Awww, my favorite breakfast growing up was polk salad mixed in with scrambled eggs. Mom would have us kids go out picking Polk salad all throughout the spring and early summer. She would boil it through two changes of water and we never got sick from eating it
Just a simple THANK YOU to you! 💞 I am originally from the USA but now live in Australia. I don't believe Pokeweed grows here but I am always fascinated to learn about any self-sustainable, wild foraged food source on our collective mother earth. After watching a few of your videos and finding them highly valuable, I have now gladly subscribed to your channel :)
Hello Patricia, Poke does grow in Oz. On the mid and far North Coast and coastal ranges of NSW it is common. It is called Dye Berry locally, but I have not seen anyone eating it. It is just starting its early growth now.
My family (SE Oklahoma) grew up eating poke salad, and the theories on how to properly cook it were numerous and varied. One older aunt said that she never knew she was poisoning her husband by not parboiling it, she just cooked it like spinach. (They we’re both just fine) most agree with the boiling it twice.
Exactly. Ate it my whole life growing up. It is the growing lack of common sense in the USA. If it was that poisonous the way they say, 10s of thousands of people have would have died over the last 100yrs.
Oh my god! Why didn’t I know that Elvis song?!!!!??? That was amazing. Thanks for including that. I’m a yankee (New York) and it’s makes sense that folks up here are scared of it! I always admire that southern perspective.
I’ve only prepared and eaten poke salad once. To be honest I used several 3 foot tall plants. If I remember correctly I took mostly leaves from the upper portion but still 8” or more leaves. It was a giant pot of blue green spinach like greens. I did about 10 water boils, maybe more. I was told to do water boils until I thought it was done and then do a few more. That was like 10 years ago. No ill effects, no burning, just tasty greens. To be honest I’ve been eyein the poke salad in my back yard all year lol. Next spring it’s fate is sealed.
We ate this when I was a boy and looked forward to picking it with my grandparents every year I personally didn't like it much now I miss it just one piece of advice when you go huntin for it watch for snakes and the roots was used for a cure for a old time sickness called the itch and you bathed in the boiled water of the root also if you're bear hunting in the early fall look for patches to sti up an ambush in old somkey bear
Loved THIS video!! Here I am having tons of pokeweed in my back yard and everyone is telling me it's poisonous like poison ivy , I should call someone to get rid of it and I was afraid of touching it. Now I can have my yard back!!
I was born and raised in the 'sticks' is West Central PA by great parents. They are now passed over but I am 80 yrs. old and going strong. Each spring, we would harvest poke greens in the younger stage of growth and later by picking the tips of older plant growth. We typically boiled the poke three times before consuming simply with butter, salt and pepper. Never did any of us get sick nor did any of our neighbors/friends. Using older growth was simply too tough and too strong of flavor to enjoy so we didn't do that. No one ever had a rash from harvesting the poke. No one ever was ill from consuming the poke (as far as we/I knew) and certainly no one ever died from it (as far as we know). To this day, I use poke weed fresh and cooked but kind of prefer eating the raw tender stems more than anything else...with no adverse effects! I have eaten the ripe berries with no ill effect but I don't like their taste so I don't regularly eat them. I would like to make some wine from the berries but with all the poison hipe about using the berries, I am reluctant to do so...at least as far as consuming such. It appears to me that most if not all the hipe about poke is from and by folks that are simply repeating the hipe from folks that are simply repeating the hipe... and have no actual specific and concrete knowledge about it...but I could be wrong but I only want to know the truth and not someone's unfounded conjecture.
Loved the video! I've seen this all over and never known what it was. My dad once said it's edible but he didn't know how to prepare it so we stayed away. Now I can tell him he was right!
I had never seen this plant before. I live mid Michigan but 2years agoit started sprouting in my flower bed and I left it because the full plant was soon pretty. It only grows to 4 feet and is vibrantly pink. I'm glad to know I an eat it thank you. I will try to pick it next spring and taste a new food 😊
As a child my dad would make spinach and eggs and call it poke salad. He thought he was very funny. I knew what we were eating, and it made sense to me, add eggs to spinach, give ‘em a poke and scramble into a salad. Several years later I learned what true poke salad was.
Hello! Even before I see your version of how to use pokeweed, I'll proclaim, that this is an excellent food when prepared properly. I tend to call it: "Poke Salad Annie" !
An excellent presentation and tutorial! You answered all my questions about Pokeweed and then some! I have three 10 foot pokes growing in my veg garden right now, of their own accord. I did not cut them down as weeds because I thought I’d find out about eating them. And also to allow Cardinals to eat the berries during winter. Now I know where to look for the young leaves next spring! Thank you!
I eat it, and the berries. The berries are medicine, but don't bite the seed inside, I just swallow it, don't bite the seed, that's where the poison is, it will pass through undigested.
It's funny you were talking about people being able to identify asparagus once it's fully grown I live in Indiana and believe it or not in Southern Indiana we actually have that stuff growing on the roadside
My flowerbeds are full of poke. My grandfather always boiled his 3 times. I've always just let mine grow because I yhink they are so pretty. But next spring I'll start harvesting and eating some. Loved your video.
Be aware that some people may be sensitive or allergic as with any plant. Also, eating several big bowls of it or of eaten several days in a row might give you the need to rum to the bathroom with great frequency. Those who are sensitive may get diarrhea from one serving. I may be in the Netherlands but I am a USA southerner.
You can eat the mature leaves when cooked properly. Meaning you just have to boil and change the water more than twice. Till a very light green tea look.
Poke is nothing to fear. It can be picked and eaten all summer. I've had a cluster growing next to my porch for 15 years. I pick a mess every 3 or 4 weeks from it. All the picking and topping makes it grow into an impressive, and I think pretty, 12 foot tall almost maple tree like plant. Just avoid the leaves once they are big enough to start turning purple. The purple is high in tannins and will definitely give you a belly ache if not boiled out. Never heard of anyone dieing from "poisonous" poke salat. A lot of B.S. out there concerning this tasty plant.
Well said. Shameful how ignorant the supposed experts are becoming. Been eating it all my life and so has many of my family and community. It used to be sold in some grocery stores and markets.
Use to collect it for my Granny. She preferred the young, but either would work. She strip the green like turnip greens, take the harder stems out; an wash well. She said have to boil, pour off water, recoil. She did such like 6 times. She then put in a skillet, add grease lard / or bacon lard. She fry sauté it down with salt an black pepper. She would not eat berries, or the root; said poisonous. She stated poisonous if not boiled an poured off right. She loved them, was like giving her bouquet of roses.she added onions sometimes, an added vinegar pepper sauce when served.
My family has been eating poke for hundreds of years (we're part Native American), and have never had to boil it more than 1 time. We've made pokeberry wine, and like to roughly chop the stems and leaves, flour and fry it in bacon grease. If we're frying it, we don't boil it. With ANY foraged food, know what you are gathering.
So you don't even boil it at all (when frying)? And never any problems? Do you only use the young shoots or also the mature ones, and what about the stalks? Also, wine from the berries? I thought they were poisonous? O_o
This is an excellant video (though a bit restrictive) of a free resource well known from an era where people were made of hardy stuff! I took my lessons from old timers who were still living on their own in their 90s! I use something herbal or nutritional from the Poke plant at least a few times a week. I put up precooked packets of poke in the freezer too. Phytolacca is a gift in my mind, there's even a useful homeopathic remedy is made from it.
Excellent video. I have steered away from it b/c of my lack of knowledge. My mom seems bent on proving to me and my children that she knows how to do this correctly (and i know she does, but...). This video has allayed my fears somewhat. I even have this growing in my yard next to a fire pile... so readily available is an understatement. As someone who enjoyed doing calligraphy, in interested in learning how to make the ink and dye!!! Thank you!!
First of all I am eating the leaves on larger poke I cooked it down like you suggested and mixed it 50/50 with spinach it is also great made up with a bit of cooked up bacon in Greece you can also do the boiling process this plant can be put in Ziploc bags and Frozen for winter salad
We ate it all the time when I was a kid in the 1950s. I was the one sent out to gather a basket full from the field behind my grandmother's house from the time I was 8 or 9 years old. She and my mother would boil it like turnip greens, changing the water once, twice, or three times by taste. It is poisonous unless you throw out the water from the FIRST boiling, but after that it depends how bitter you like it. Second boiling is still very bitter, and it might be hard on someone's stomach not accustom to it. The THIRD boiling comes out like mustard or turnip greens. It's great with hot water cornbread. Now I'm going to have to make some cornbread and find some greens to boil. It just sounds too good.
Just one a day. Also the berries can eliminate skin cancer when applying a thickend juice, thickend by setting out to dry up a little. A berrya day is said to end rhumatism.
@@georgemacdonell2341 I think you might be thinking of Elderberry wine. They look similar. Elderberry grows in a big cluster and pokeberry has a single shoot with berries.
We cook poke salat in the spring here in NC. I take berries (swallow whole - seeds are toxic) for arthritis (1 -3 day max for me for a week or two then a break) & we pull roots for making tincture and oils after frost and top parts die back. Very carefully process and poke is not for everyone, literally 1 tiny drop (not dropper) is the starting point for potent medicine. Words from the wise: The death or medicine is in the dose. Lots of interesting research out there on the benefits.
I grew up eating pokeweed and anxiously await its emergence every spring. Good stuff! We also use the berries but are careful to remove all the toxin-containing seeds first. We add the juice to another strong tasting juice for delicious jelly that the old timers say is good to help relieve the pain and stiffness of arthritis. We also add it to other juices for wine. It was once used in wines for coloring. The ink was used during the Civil War for writing letters; it was permanent but turned brown over time. Most vintage letters from that war were written with pokeberry ink.
After a double boil. My mom would add bacon grease to a cast iron skillet and add the double boils poke to the skillet after a quick fry she would pour scrambled eggs and mix until the eggs where cooked. It looked like green scrambled eggs! She claimed if ya ate a couple batches every year it would improve your immune system. I am over fifty years old and still enjoy it every year!
Do you mean that she put raw eggs into the skillet with the poke salad/grease and fry 'em up that way, or fry the eggs separately first, and _then_ add them into the other skillet?
Yes! We ate it in exactly the same way growing up in NE Oklahoma.
We cooked it with bacon also
My Cherokee family consider this one of their favorite Spring dishes. They make Walesi-pokeweed (cooked twice) fried up with wild onions and mushrooms. The wild birds I feed gave me the gift of pokeweed in my yard, so I’ll be trying this!
Do you cook ramps with it? If you have ramps growing in your area, you've got to try it. They're strong but delicious.
Why couldn't I have discovered this channel years ago. Pokeweed is everywhere.
I've been harvesting and eating poke for over 50 years and I can assure you that poke can be eaten when it is bigger than what you are recommending...i usually harvest when the plant is about a foot to a foot and a half tall and have NEVER had a problem... Just fyi...
i AGREE
Poke weed as long as the stalks have not become sponge. I cut the stalks parboiled the stalks, take off the outer thin skin, like you would a tomato, chop up like okra batter an deep fried. Leaves are great for breakfast. When cooking for breakfast mix beaten up eggs in. Stalks taste like asparagus.
I love editable weeds.
As long as the leaves don't have a lot of red in the veins you're good to go. I don't boil it and pour the water off, I just stir fry it in bacon grease. I HAVE gotten sick once from eating a ton of it without removing the stem that runs down the center of the leaf. It gave me the screaming squirts and a tingling sensation all over but keep in mind I ate BIG meals of it 3 days in a row.
@@entrepreneursfinest well I've always boiled it in 2 waters but your stir fry method sounds really good! I will definitely try it your way next spring!
@@steventuck1524 It's really good that way. You could still give it a boil and then press out the water through a strainer. I don't use the really old leaves and I try to get the plants that are shaded. I'm not sure if that makes a huge difference but it just "feels" right lol. I love them and any other green fried down in oil and if you throw some crispy bacon in at the end it truly is excellent. Keeps just a touch of the bite in taste that you can lose in boiling.
My mother cooked poke greens but she also cooked the young stems. She tried to pick them before the leaves began to open up. She sliced the stems in disks and rolled them in seasoned cornmeal and fried them in a skillet. It tasted like fried okra.
Excellent treatment of a oft maligned subject matter! Folks get mad at me for letting my poke grow. Accuse me of spreading death and destruction. And this is in the Ozarks, where it’s been consumed for centuries, if not longer. Thank you for injecting some rationality to the equation. 😊
Oh yes , from spring to fall, beautiful ornamental ❤
Spring Tonic (growth tips)
White blood cell stimulant;
mimics leukemia !?!
And fantastic with
🥩&🥚’s
🕊
@@whitefarms3274
"mimics leukemia"? what do you mean?
Some folks just can't eat it. I've tried to eat it. I can't, 2 of my children can't. My hubby and 1 son can. I've even tried boiling and discarding water up to 5 times! With that many times, what is the point of even trying. lol.... Eating it HURTS. Gut pains worse than any flu. It gets irradiated on my property. Just eat spinach or any other green that isn't painful when eaten. It won't kill you but It can make you wish for death. lol
It would drive one of my uncles crazy that I allowed poke to grow, thistles and yellow dock all over my yard and flower beds. Caught him attempting to round up it all… told him I use it all and not to spray in the yard.
I've been eating poke for over 50yrs. When the stalks are young and not woody, I cut them up and fry like you do okra and I don't boil the leaves twice.
Nothing taste like poke! 😊
Delicious.
A friend of mine who grew up in the Ozarks talks about how his mother prepared that often. I want to try it.
Selah: Please give the recipe for how you prepare poke for frying. A neighbor fixed a dish of poke and scrambled eggs. It was delicious! Thanks in advance for your effort. 🙂
@@carolinegray7510
I'm glad you liked the poke! It's good for you, too.
When the stalks are about a foot to a foot and a half high, peel off outer layer. Is real easy to do, just start at one end and strip it off, then cut them up in one or so inches long. Use equal parts of stirred together flour and cornmeal for batter. Roll in batter and fry on medium heat until a nice brown in oil. (Not butter.) About 5 or 6 minutes or until tender.
Salt to taste.
Enjoy!!!
!
Love fried polk stalks. Haven't had the leaves fried since childhood. Going to try in the spring
I am 65, I learned to harvest many wild plants from my grandparents and a very knowledgeable older lady. I enjoyed your description of poke. Personally, I have a chainlink fence around my yard were I have maintained poke for over thirty years. My favorite recipe involves poke and sting nettles greens as a side dish. Thank you for sharing ❤.
Two of the most nutritious plants on the earth!
I am 43 years old and was raised in a hollow in WV. My mom loved poke and could eat it everyday if she had it. She never boiled it and picked it when it was small and larger in size but always said it was better the smaller the plants are. As long as the stems weren’t too red or too thick,she ate it. She taught me to cook it the way she did. She washed it really well and cut the bottoms off and cut up the leaves and small stalks and coated them with some raw eggs so the cornmeal and onions would stick to the greens and she would add salt and pepper and fried it up in bacon grease until all of the greens were fried and had a crispy brown coating from the corn meal. It was delicious! As I got older I realized that I liked to add a little flour to the cornmeal and some wild ramps to mine to give some extra flavor and it’s even more delicious. My mom had 12 children and none of us died from eating poke. It gave us the runs if we ate too much of it but that’s probably because she didn’t boil it and rinse it 3 times and we ate bowls of it at a time. I always thought it was just high in fiber. Lol
I’m just now learning more about poke and never even knew it could be so poisonous. I do remember my mom saying that she didn’t think babies were supposed to eat it until after they were a year old and said some people told her that it could make you sick but mom said it never bothered her and she was raised poor and had to eat something. I did use to think the berries were poisonous but now my brother tells me that he eats the berries for his arthritis. Lol
Maybe he just eats a few at a time. I’m pretty sure he freezes them in ice cube trays to preserve them so he can eat a few at a time.
I'm a WV girl too. You brought me back to my childhood memories. Ramps I can taste them now! Thank you.
Floyd County,Kentucky
I use the berries, but you don't bite the seed, that's where the poison is, the seed will pass through undigested.
I agree with @mayamachine, just swallow a berry every day once they're ripe. I put the rest in the freezer and your "itises" will go away...
I also eat one raw clove of garlic every Monday Wednesday and Friday (minced and left to set for at least 10 minutes in the morning before chewing it up. After I eat it I wait 10 minutes and have a tall glass hot green tea so that I don't knock everyone around me out, lol. It seems to keep me healthy between the two of them. I'll be 73 shortly 😳
My grandma fried the stems they were good like fried okra
And I was going to tear up the patch that started growing in my backyard!! Even my reliable foraging book said it was completely dangerous, this video was very informational, I will have to check out the books you recommended
If poke salad was poisonous, well when handled properly, my mom would’ve been dead in the 40’s. They grew up on it in the hills of NC. I didn’t know Elvis sang about it though…..
Tony Joe White recorded about 1968, I don't think that's quite the right name. I wasn't aware Elvis covered the song, either.
Thank you for sharing. I have been afraid of all the pokeweed growing on my property for 19 years. Now I am not afraid of it.
This is now my favourite foraging channel. I really enjoy the history you add to your videos and the amount of knowledge and clarity making it easier for a novice like me to understand.
When I was about six or seven, my great-grandmother told me what she was making for dinner.
"Poke Salat", she said.
She had a deep Texas accent and I thought she was saying "Pork Salad", in her Southern style. I asked her to repeat it so many times, I think it made her half mad at me. LOL!
I was still so confused. I could only imagine a pork chop on a bed of lettuce, and that didn't sound like her kind of cooking.
But, she showed me the pot of greens boiling on the stove, and spelled it for me, and then I understood.
She used to fry it after boiling, with onions and either salt pork or chopped bacon.
I enjoyed eating it as a child, but probably never would have ventured a taste, had she not been the cook.
She would add Hot Pepper Vinegar to her own bowl of Poke Salat.
Thanks for the great info!!!
My Granny too!
What a nice story, Liz! You should write that down so that future generations can have a glimpse of what your great-grandmother was like.
My grandfather used to be a picker of poke for ALLENS. We grew up eating it. And its poke picking season in the Ozarks now.
Hi , I just found your channel. I grew up eating poke in East Tennessee.My mother made poke paddies with cornmeal,flour,onions and bacon, I haven’t had poke in years. I can’t wait until next April (late April).Thanks for being up a wonderful memory. I can remember harvesting poke with my Mother and Grandmothers.
Sounds great, hope someone posts it on UA-cam
How did she make the patties?
I have poke salad growing in my yard . My husband grew up on a farm in PA. He told me his family used to eat it all the time but he didn’t bc he doesn’t like any greens.
I asked ppl about it and most said they didn’t know anything about it.
Thank you for such an informative video. It’s going to be a poke salad spring in 2023!
I've had this vegetable growing in my yard for years and would always chop it down. I'm adding it to my spring edibles for 2023 too!
Me too! I have a huge plant I have been cutting back every year. I have been eating all the other edible "weeds" on the property.. but everything I researched said poke was not edible. I am SO happy I came across this video! Looking forward to collecting an abundance of greens this spring. Life, Love & Peace to ALL, 🙋♀️🌻👩🌾🏕
@@novembersunflower968 They used to can it for sale in stores...
@@gregzeigler3850 Thanks Greg! 🌻
So glad I found this channel. I knew about poke salad but I was always worried about not prepping it properly. Now I can rest assured and enjoy another wild food.
Thank you for taking the time to explain your vast wealth of healthy experience. I have poke growing all over the place and now feel extremely confident in harvesting and consuming it safely. I really appreciate your thoroughness, the time you took to video the actual plant in many cycles of growth to the process of cooking it safely. Amazing hard work and excellent presentation! 100% A+
Fully mature leaves are edible. The stem down the middle is tough and is best cut out, but the leaves are huge so it is not difficult. If you don't break the shoot off at the root multiple shoots grow off the stem which results in more shoots, and a massive poke bush. No harm in that however. More leaves to eat.
So no stems/stalks? Only leaves (If I understand correctly)?
@@51MontyPython From the mature plant, only the leaves. The stalk is great in the early spring.
That beginning with the King was epic!
Nutritional Value of Pokeweek per Wikipedia: "a 100g serving of pokeweed contains 20 calories and 3.1 grams of carbohydrates, 1.6 grams of sugars, 1.5 grams of dietary fiber, 0.4 grams of fat, 2.3 grams of protein, and is a rich source of vitamin A, vitamin B2, vitamin C, vitamin K, and manganese. It contains low levels of vitamin B1, vitamin B6, iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium." - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytolacca_americana#Nutrition
Yep! Early spring is time to cut and cook up Poke. Spring cleaning time! Both for your house and your intestines! 😂
Well, you have inspired me to give pokeweed a try next spring! I have a patch growing behind my barn that's been impossible to get rid of.
The BEST instructional video on pokeweed I've seen yet. Thank you! Super information.
Just cover in water and cook it, drain the water off and add fresh water, cook it again! Yummy, tastes a good bit like Spinach. Poke Salat is extremely healthy and is very high in vitamins and minerals.
Do you only use young leaves, or also mature ones? And what about stems/stalks?
This is THE best video on Poke... complete with Elvis from my favorite Vegas show wearing my fav Elvis jumpsuit. But all that aside, I appreciate your time and attention to the value of knowing how to prepare and eat this amazing green!
Thank you. As one that has harvested and eaten poke greens for years, i can say you have done a wonderful job explaining this subject.
You can harvest poke leaves at any stage. Just boil twice. My grandparents on both sides lived into their 90s, eating all stages of this plant all their lives.
as a teen i lived in a small apartment building on a bluff overlooking the fall line of the james river.There was a summer field of overgrown pokeweed, blackberries and wild lettuce that grew up high on a hillside in between the leveled asphalt parking lot and the lower lying field that comprised a small park below. There was an 100 year old neighborhood behind this park and I remember meeting a spry couple in their 80s (who lived in one of the nearby old houses) in late july out picking the youngest leaves of the pokeweed at the top of the tall plants closest to the dark, hanging berry-clusters, and filling bags and baskets with them. I asked them about it and they told me theyd been doing such all summer for years on end and explained the process of picking the youngest helathiest leaves and how to double boil them and rinse them. I really love cooked spinach, collards. arugula, mustard greens and chard and Im really stoked to try Pokeweed for the 1st time.
My mother cooked this every spring, never boiled it twice she boiled it once with fat back and we would dig in with fried pork chops,
I had an herbalist friend who dried whole ripe poke berries, and recommended taking 2-3 per day for arthritis. They didn't help my pain, but they didn't hurt me, either. She sold these in a local co-op store and elsewhere with no problems, as far as I know.
Hi 👋 how are you doing?
Do let the plant live out it’s life into fall. Cardinals love it and sure look pretty sitting on a huge plant enjoying the black berries.
Although I don't live in the areas with poke weeds, I enjoyed watching and learning about it. I'm curious about the taste too. Thank you.
I love your channel. I appreciate all the work you put into making all this information easy to digest. Thank you, thank you!
Poke salad is good to eat if cooked correctly. Also you can eat the leave on fully matured plants as well.
Awww, my favorite breakfast growing up was polk salad mixed in with scrambled eggs. Mom would have us kids go out picking Polk salad all throughout the spring and early summer. She would boil it through two changes of water and we never got sick from eating it
So nicely done! I totally enjoyed your presentation.
This has been the best, most informative video I’ve watched on pokeweed yet. Thank you!!
Just a simple THANK YOU to you! 💞 I am originally from the USA but now live in Australia. I don't believe Pokeweed grows here but I am always fascinated to learn about any self-sustainable, wild foraged food source on our collective mother earth.
After watching a few of your videos and finding them highly valuable, I have now gladly subscribed to your channel :)
Hello Patricia, Poke does grow in Oz. On the mid and far North Coast and coastal ranges of NSW it is common. It is called Dye Berry locally, but I have not seen anyone eating it. It is just starting its early growth now.
I'll bet native people know the edible wild plants
My family (SE Oklahoma) grew up eating poke salad, and the theories on how to properly cook it were numerous and varied. One older aunt said that she never knew she was poisoning her husband by not parboiling it, she just cooked it like spinach. (They we’re both just fine) most agree with the boiling it twice.
Exactly. Ate it my whole life growing up. It is the growing lack of common sense in the USA. If it was that poisonous the way they say, 10s of thousands of people have would have died over the last 100yrs.
Oh my god! Why didn’t I know that Elvis song?!!!!??? That was amazing. Thanks for including that. I’m a yankee (New York) and it’s makes sense that folks up here are scared of it! I always admire that southern perspective.
I’ve only prepared and eaten poke salad once. To be honest I used several 3 foot tall plants. If I remember correctly I took mostly leaves from the upper portion but still 8” or more leaves. It was a giant pot of blue green spinach like greens. I did about 10 water boils, maybe more. I was told to do water boils until I thought it was done and then do a few more. That was like 10 years ago. No ill effects, no burning, just tasty greens. To be honest I’ve been eyein the poke salad in my back yard all year lol. Next spring it’s fate is sealed.
Lol
We ate this when I was a boy and looked forward to picking it with my grandparents every year I personally didn't like it much now I miss it just one piece of advice when you go huntin for it watch for snakes and the roots was used for a cure for a old time sickness called the itch and you bathed in the boiled water of the root also if you're bear hunting in the early fall look for patches to sti up an ambush in old somkey bear
Loved THIS video!! Here I am having tons of pokeweed in my back yard and everyone is telling me it's poisonous like poison ivy , I should call someone to get rid of it and I was afraid of touching it. Now I can have my yard back!!
Have it growing in my yard! Absolutely delicious!
New subscriber! Amazing video. I've been fighting back pokeweed by my fence for two years! Now I'm going to just let it grow and harvest the shoots!
I was born and raised in the 'sticks' is West Central PA by great parents. They are now passed over but I am 80 yrs. old and going strong. Each spring, we would harvest poke greens in the younger stage of growth and later by picking the tips of older plant growth. We typically boiled the poke three times before consuming simply with butter, salt and pepper. Never did any of us get sick nor did any of our neighbors/friends. Using older growth was simply too tough and too strong of flavor to enjoy so we didn't do that. No one ever had a rash from harvesting the poke. No one ever was ill from consuming the poke (as far as we/I knew) and certainly no one ever died from it (as far as we know). To this day, I use poke weed fresh and cooked but kind of prefer eating the raw tender stems more than anything else...with no adverse effects! I have eaten the ripe berries with no ill effect but I don't like their taste so I don't regularly eat them. I would like to make some wine from the berries but with all the poison hipe about using the berries, I am reluctant to do so...at least as far as consuming such. It appears to me that most if not all the hipe about poke is from and by folks that are simply repeating the hipe from folks that are simply repeating the hipe... and have no actual specific and concrete knowledge about it...but I could be wrong but I only want to know the truth and not someone's unfounded conjecture.
I love this stuff! My grandparents canned it yearly! So good!
This awesome thanks I can't wait to eat some poke salad next spring! Your plate of poke, rice, fried egg looks amazing!
You are highly detailed and discreptive.Thank You for sharing Your knowleged of this herb😁
Best video about Pokeweed! Thank you for all you do :)
Loved the video! I've seen this all over and never known what it was. My dad once said it's edible but he didn't know how to prepare it so we stayed away. Now I can tell him he was right!
I ate it raw before. Just maybe one leaf or two at a time. I'm63 and still kicking. But I also didn't know I wasn't supposed to eat it raw.
I had never seen this plant before. I live mid Michigan but 2years agoit started sprouting in my flower bed and I left it because the full plant was soon pretty. It only grows to 4 feet and is vibrantly pink. I'm glad to know I an eat it thank you. I will try to pick it next spring and taste a new food 😊
Lol @15:40😂😂🤣😯🤦🏽♀️ thank you for sharing so much valuable information. I am so blessed to have come to your channel. I am a new subscriber
My mom would scramble an egg in the poke salad, and we would always pare it with pinto beans.
As a child my dad would make spinach and eggs and call it poke salad. He thought he was very funny. I knew what we were eating, and it made sense to me, add eggs to spinach, give ‘em a poke and scramble into a salad. Several years later I learned what true poke salad was.
Awesome! We had some pokeweed pop up and I can’t wait to try it next spring
Thank you for the information.very well explained.
Hello! Even before I see your version of how to use pokeweed, I'll proclaim, that this is an excellent food when prepared properly.
I tend to call it: "Poke Salad Annie" !
An excellent presentation and tutorial! You answered all my questions about Pokeweed and then some! I have three 10 foot pokes growing in my veg garden right now, of their own accord. I did not cut them down as weeds because I thought I’d find out about eating them. And also to allow Cardinals to eat the berries during winter. Now I know where to look for the young leaves next spring! Thank you!
Kudos, you make some great videos. I'm envious of your skills in video-making!
Alabama- my grandmother picked it as we walked after supper. She boiled it before consumption.
I eat it, and the berries. The berries are medicine, but don't bite the seed inside, I just swallow it, don't bite the seed, that's where the poison is, it will pass through undigested.
It's funny you were talking about people being able to identify asparagus once it's fully grown I live in Indiana and believe it or not in Southern Indiana we actually have that stuff growing on the roadside
My flowerbeds are full of poke. My grandfather always boiled his 3 times. I've always just let mine grow because I yhink they are so pretty. But next spring I'll start harvesting and eating some. Loved your video.
They're beautiful imo.
Be aware that some people may be sensitive or allergic as with any plant. Also, eating several big bowls of it or of eaten several days in a row might give you the need to rum to the bathroom with great frequency. Those who are sensitive may get diarrhea from one serving.
I may be in the Netherlands but I am a USA southerner.
You can eat the mature leaves when cooked properly. Meaning you just have to boil and change the water more than twice. Till a very light green tea look.
Poke is nothing to fear. It can be picked and eaten all summer. I've had a cluster growing next to my porch for 15 years. I pick a mess every 3 or 4 weeks from it. All the picking and topping makes it grow into an impressive, and I think pretty, 12 foot tall almost maple tree like plant. Just avoid the leaves once they are big enough to start turning purple. The purple is high in tannins and will definitely give you a belly ache if not boiled out.
Never heard of anyone dieing from "poisonous" poke salat. A lot of B.S. out there concerning this tasty plant.
Well said. Shameful how ignorant the supposed experts are becoming. Been eating it all my life and so has many of my family and community. It used to be sold in some grocery stores and markets.
Very well explained. Thank you. I'm subscribing.
I love your channel!! Subscribed!!
Mom would scramble some eggs at it too.
w0w, ms Kane, many thanks for the best ever info! ✔️
Use to collect it for my Granny. She preferred the young, but either would work. She strip the green like turnip greens, take the harder stems out; an wash well. She said have to boil, pour off water, recoil. She did such like 6 times. She then put in a skillet, add grease lard / or bacon lard. She fry sauté it down with salt an black pepper. She would not eat berries, or the root; said poisonous. She stated poisonous if not boiled an poured off right. She loved them, was like giving her bouquet of roses.she added onions sometimes, an added vinegar pepper sauce when served.
Great video! Thanks so much.
My family has been eating poke for hundreds of years (we're part Native American), and have never had to boil it more than 1 time. We've made pokeberry wine, and like to roughly chop the stems and leaves, flour and fry it in bacon grease. If we're frying it, we don't boil it. With ANY foraged food, know what you are gathering.
So you don't even boil it at all (when frying)? And never any problems? Do you only use the young shoots or also the mature ones, and what about the stalks?
Also, wine from the berries? I thought they were poisonous? O_o
Pokeberry wine, like with the berries? That sounds pretty cool. Did anyone in your family make pokeberry jam?
Some people take the berries for arthritis. There' s a couple videos on UA-cam somewhere. @@51MontyPython
Excellent video!!! Thank you!!! Poke is the best!
Around me, poke is called Inkberry. And it's used mostly for chicken feed. Chickens love it, both the greens AND the berries.
Interesting. TY
I came from a family line that always said poke was poisonous so I would keep cutting it out definitely going to try it this spring!
My very favorite vegetable and I just started this last year. It grows wild in my yard.
This is an excellant video (though a bit restrictive) of a free resource well known from an era where people were made of hardy stuff! I took my lessons from old timers who were still living on their own in their 90s! I use something herbal or nutritional from the Poke plant at least a few times a week. I put up precooked packets of poke in the freezer too. Phytolacca is a gift in my mind, there's even a useful homeopathic remedy is made from it.
I have beautiful poke plants growing in a few places in my garden. I like their flavor but mostly I enjoy watching them grow.
great video, i've eaten a bunch of times and loved it. moving back to tennessee so i'll be eating more of it....
What a brilliant channel this is.
I’m so glad you started with PolkSalad Annie
Excellent video. I have steered away from it b/c of my lack of knowledge. My mom seems bent on proving to me and my children that she knows how to do this correctly (and i know she does, but...). This video has allayed my fears somewhat. I even have this growing in my yard next to a fire pile... so readily available is an understatement. As someone who enjoyed doing calligraphy, in interested in learning how to make the ink and dye!!! Thank you!!
Good eats! Spent my Springs as a child looking for polk, wild mustard, spinach, dandelions, and wild asparagus
The good shit
Great info, thank you.
Grew up eating poke sallet. It's delicious.
First of all I am eating the leaves on larger poke I cooked it down like you suggested and mixed it 50/50 with spinach it is also great made up with a bit of cooked up bacon in Greece you can also do the boiling process this plant can be put in Ziploc bags and Frozen for winter salad
You went all the way to Greece to cook bacon? Thats commitment
@@JustinJurazick grease
@justmuscles5895 When you say leaves on larger poke, do you mean larger (more mature) _leaves,_ or simply young shoots albeit from the bigger plants?
Great video! Thank you!
I grew up eating this! My Mom picked it and made it for us. It was delicious!
We ate it all the time when I was a kid in the 1950s. I was the one sent out to gather a basket full from the field behind my grandmother's house from the time I was 8 or 9 years old. She and my mother would boil it like turnip greens, changing the water once, twice, or three times by taste. It is poisonous unless you throw out the water from the FIRST boiling, but after that it depends how bitter you like it. Second boiling is still very bitter, and it might be hard on someone's stomach not accustom to it. The THIRD boiling comes out like mustard or turnip greens. It's great with hot water cornbread.
Now I'm going to have to make some cornbread and find some greens to boil. It just sounds too good.
Poke berries are very edible, I’ve eaten the berries every year for the last 60 years
Just one a day. Also the berries can eliminate skin cancer when applying a thickend juice, thickend by setting out to dry up a little. A berrya day is said to end rhumatism.
@@aryanasaiter6150 Appalachian people made a wine from the berries for rheumatism.
@@georgemacdonell2341
I think you might be thinking of Elderberry wine. They look similar. Elderberry grows in a big cluster and pokeberry has a single shoot with berries.
@@wilsonrawlin8547 Other than both being dicots, the plants look nothing alike.
We cook poke salat in the spring here in NC. I take berries (swallow whole - seeds are toxic) for arthritis (1 -3 day max for me for a week or two then a break) & we pull roots for making tincture and oils after frost and top parts die back. Very carefully process and poke is not for everyone, literally 1 tiny drop (not dropper) is the starting point for potent medicine. Words from the wise: The death or medicine is in the dose. Lots of interesting research out there on the benefits.
Also living in NC (for past 15 years; originally from Texas). What do you use the tinctures for from the roots? I'm really curious.
My backyard is full of pokeweed
I grew up eating pokeweed and anxiously await its emergence every spring. Good stuff! We also use the berries but are careful to remove all the toxin-containing seeds first. We add the juice to another strong tasting juice for delicious jelly that the old timers say is good to help relieve the pain and stiffness of arthritis. We also add it to other juices for wine. It was once used in wines for coloring. The ink was used during the Civil War for writing letters; it was permanent but turned brown over time. Most vintage letters from that war were written with pokeberry ink.
Love it!!!!!
Thanks very helpful information. I bought some seeds to grow in the uk
Wish I'd known this when I had my horse farm. SO much pokeweed along the fencelines.