Pokeweed, dandelion greens and other edibles.

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coote

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I bought a second hand book called ‘Our Natural World’. It is a collection of various written material about wilderness America put together by Hal Borland. One of the included pieces is from a book called ‘Hawks Aloft: The Story of Hawk Mountain’ by Maurice Broun (born 1906). Maurice mentions that he and his wife canned pokeweed shoots and dandelion greens as part of their preparation for winter. He says: “The pokeweed shoots are delicious; like asparagus, but better, in my opinion.”

I have eaten dandelion greens but I've never heard of pokeweed. I looked it up on the web and it appears that the plant may have some very poisonous parts (berries and roots?).

Has anybody here tried pokeweed? Do you agree that it is delicious?

What other wild greens do people eat in your area?
 
Pokeweed, poke salet, "pokesalad" as it is called here in the Southern U.S., is indeed good and loaded with vitamins and minerals. The shoots, leaf terminals, and young leaves are preferred, as the older leaves, stems, and berries develope an astringent chemical that is bitter and can be poisonous. Even the younger leaves can have a small amount, enough to give them a bit of bitterness, so the way I cook them is to parboil them first. Then I pour off the water, add fresh water and a bit of butter and onion if I am making boiled greens, or drain and fry them in a skillet with some pork fat for "greasey greens". Yes, they are good, though I have never tried preserving them.

FYI- This is the herb sung about in the song "Poke Salet Annie" written by Tony Joe White and performed by several artists including Elvis.

If some of ya'll never been down South too much...
I'm gonna tell you a little bit about this,
So that you'll understand what I'm talking about
Down there we have a plant
That grows out in the woods and the fields,
Looks somethin' like a turnip green.
Everybody calls it Poke salad. Poke salad.
Used to know a girl that lived down there and
she'd go out in the evenings and pick a mess of it...
Carry it home and cook it for supper,
'Cause that's about all they had to eat,
But they did all right.

[sung]
Down in Louisiana
Where the alligators grow so mean
There lived a girl that I swear to the world
Made the alligators look tempting

Poke salad Annie, poke salad Annie
Everybody said it was a shame
Cause her mama was working on the chain-gang
(A mean, vicious woman)

Everyday 'fore supper time
She'd go down by the truck patch
And pick her a mess o' polk salad
And carry it home in a tote sack

Poke salad Annie, 'gators got you granny
Everybody said it was a shame
'Cause her mama was aworkin' on the chain-gang
(a wretched, spiteful, straight-razor totin' woman,
Lord have mercy. Pick a mess of it)

Her daddy was lazy and no count
Claimed he had a bad back
All her brothers were fit for
Was stealin' watermelons out of my truck patch


Poke salad Annie, the gators got your granny
Everybody said it was a shame
Cause her mama was a working' on the chain gang
(Sock a little polk salad to me, you know I need a mess of it)
 
I have eaten lots of poke salad and I love it as well as all greens, I like mine with eggs and a little pepper sauce. Codger is right you always boil it and change the water to get rid of some of the bitterness, I have always been told that the berries are poisonous. Chris
 
I eat Dandelion greens often, at one time I actually had a small raised bed garden section of Dandelion, the guy that mows my yard thought I was crazy when I told him I eat them. :D
 
What other wild greens do people eat in your area?
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I know a few that have eaten wild carrot (also called Queen Ann's Lace). Its a bit starchy and should be boiled as well. From what I've been told, its best to use it in stews or mixed with other foods. By itself it can be a bit strong. Younger plants are a better choice as well as they get grainy with age.

Before trying these learn how to identify the young plants. They can be confused with Poison Hemlock! Queen Ann's Lace has stems with a "spiney" or "Hairy" appearance while hemlock doesn't.
 
Rupestris said:
I know a few that have eaten wild carrot (also called Queen Ann's Lace). Its a bit starchy and should be boiled as well. From what I've been told, its best to use it in stews or mixed with other foods. By itself it can be a bit strong. Younger plants are a better choice as well as they get grainy with age.

Before trying these learn how to identify the young plants. They can be confused with Poison Hemlock! Queen Ann's Lace has stems with a "spiney" or "Hairy" appearance while hemlock doesn't.
Click to expand...

Really good advice in general when it comes to harvesting "wild" food.

The hemlock also has purple splotches on the stems and foilage that looks more like parsley to me, rather than the carrot. QAL is the plant from which the carrot was bred over years (as livestock feed).

Nice thing about QAL (like cat tail roots) is that it is a good source of calories, unlike most "edible" wild plants, which are salad greens good only to prevent vitamin/mineral deficiency diseases.
 
Good comments thanks.

Dang, that Poke Salad must be good to have a song written about it. If I visit the USA I will just have to try it.

Fern fronds are a 'survival' food that get a mention around here. I haven't particularly enjoyed the ones I've tried, although they are edible.

Inner bark is probably the most reliable plant food to find, although I am not too sure how much of it a human being can digest. I guess if you were hungry enough you'd just keep eating it. Gathering bark would be quite damaging to the tree.

I have seen references to grass as a food for humans. Some of it tastes passable, but I've never made a meal of it.
 
Wheat, corn, milo, etc are all grass seeds. Hybridized over thousands of years. Wild rice is harvested in the U.S. too (And Canada still?). Nearly the same way as it was a thousand years ago. A boat (canoe, bullboat, dugout) is poled thru the shallow water where the rice grows, and a passenger thrashes the seed heads into the boat.
 
Yep, fiddleheads of the ferns rock, IMHO. Some local stores carry then if you want to try up front.

Cattails are predominantly edible too. Roots are not too bad, haven't had the seeded head.
 
coote said:
Has anybody here tried pokeweed? Do you agree that it is delicious?

What other wild greens do people eat in your area?
Click to expand...

Yeah, poke salad is delicious. I haven't had it since I was a kid though.

My favorite wild green these days is lamb's quarters - it grows in a park near me. Has a nice spicy/peppery note to it.

http://www.fcps.edu/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/lambs_quarters.htm

I think that wild greens tend to have higher levels of vitamins and nutrients than domesticated varieties.
 
Love that tune.

My goats love poke berries and in the fall I always freak out cause from a distance it looks like they are bleeding from the mouth till I get up close and realize they are snacking on the poke.
 
coote said:
Fern fronds are a 'survival' food that get a mention around here. I haven't particularly enjoyed the ones I've tried, although they are edible.
Click to expand...

Hey coote,
Don't know about the ferns in NZ, but here you have to avoid Bracken Fern (Pteridium aquilinum). - "Bracken contains a number of toxic constituents, apparently present throughout the plant. These include: a cyanide-producing glycoside (prunasin); an enzyme, thiaminase; and at least two carcinogens, quercetin and kaempferol, and an unidentified radiation-mimicking substance, apparently also mutagenic and carcinogenic......................(leaving out a lot of details...) Human consumption of Bracken has been suggested as a cause of the high incidence of stomach cancer in Japan. The fiddleheads contain high concentrations of carcinogenic agents." (Common Poisonous Plants and Mushrooms of North America, Nancy J. Turner/Adam F. Szczawinski, Timber Press, 2001, ISBN# 0-88192-312-5, page 70). There are many more references that state the same.

The fiddleheads that apparently are safe for consumption in this area are Ostrich Fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris).

Doc
 
That's a good point Doc.

It seems to be common knowledge around here that the Maori ate a lot of bracken fern rhizomes (sometimes called roots). It is even possible that they cultivated them in good soil. When I was a kid I thought it was ok to eat any fern fiddlehead, but it was only a few years ago that I learned that bracken fern is possibly carcinogenic...the fiddleheads anyway.

Our bracken has the botanical name Pteridium esculentum. So if ours is labelled as dangerous, along with yours (P. aquilinum)...then I would consider that all brackens should not be eaten.

I have used the dried, thick stems of bracken to make excellent arrows. These have also proven to be very dangerous to animal life. They twist a lot when drying and often look like rope, but once they are straight they stay straight. The stems shrink a heck of a lot when drying, so only very thick stems will do the job... and they are comparatively rare. The dead stems you find aren't really any good. The best ones are harvested around the end of the growing season when they are mature and still alive.
 
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