Polk Salad Plant
The berry root and leaves are used as medicine.
Polk salad plant. We re going to walk you through how to render this tender plant into something safe and delicious. Pokeweed american phytolacca americana. Even though that s what a lot of people call the most common pokeweed dish its true name is poke sallet or poke salat. Gathering her greens from the.
Pokeweed is also known as poke poke salad or poke sallet inkberry cancer root pigeon berry and american nightshade. Poke salad plant is poisonous raw. The young greens should be boiled and drained three times to purge the toxins before they are fried in hot oil or bacon fat with eggs. That s because poke has been eaten for so long by our european ancestors here in north america.
Polk salad is however eaten in the southeren united states. It is an ingredient used in traditional appalachian cuisine and made edible by cooking the young shoots of the plant repeatedly to remove the poisonous toxins. Poke weed is a foraging challenge. Even though that sounds scary don t worry.
The jekyll and hyde plant if a nice looking plant could attract scads of birds make a great mess of greens treat cancer aids herpes bad breath and more and revolutionize the solar energy industry on the side wouldn t youwant it in your backyard. With care you can enjoy this abundant and tasty plant in the spring. Pokeweed is a plant. Despite the fact that the kudzu like phytolacca americana sprouts up all across north america poke sallet a dish made from the plant s slightly less toxic leaves is a regional thing popular.
When used in chinese medicine it is called chuíxù shānglù 垂序商陸. Polk salad is a toxic plant containing phytolaccatoxin and phytolaccigenin. Polk salad likley gained popularity in the south during hard times when people had little else to eat. Polk salad refers to cooked pokeweed which is basically cooked greens.
Phytolacca americana or pokeweed is also known as pokeberry poke root virginia poke or simply poke pigeonberry inkberry redweed or red ink plant. When cooked this way it has a flavor similar to asparagus. Ingredients pokeweed leaves bacon fat enough to coat pan crushed bacon to taste salt pepper to taste. In the song annie knows how to cook the plant which can be fatal if not properly prepared.
These substances are toxic to mammals and may cause death.