[Magdalen] In the jungle

[Lynn Ronkainen]

VERY interesting Sibyl!  I had googled briefly only to identify, and I did by photo. We have that here in my corner of TX. I had also thought it was edible in some form but brief skim of what I read seemed to counter indicate that. And bacon fat? Aren't many things enhanced by it! ; )
I only use infrequently these days, mostly for salad dressing, but yesterday when buying eggplant I had a sudden flashback to Omer 30 years ago when I would lightly flour thick slices of eggplant after brushing with egg wash and pan fry in bacon fat... *almost* heaven!  Instead I'll be oven roasting it and making healthier babagnoche (sp?)

Back to a Labor Day of laboring. 
Lynn 

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 7, 2015, at 11:04 AM, Sibyl Smirl <polycarpa3 at ckt.net> wrote:

In defense of Poke.

It seems that I always have to be the contrarian, so here I go again on another rant.  Poke is one of my favorite plants.  "Tree-sized" is an exaggeration (I've never seen it taller than about five feet, and I've seen it in the richest, well-composted soil and full sun), and it's poisonous to the iggernant, but all true Rednecks love it.  Euell Gibbons, in "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" and Gene Stratton Porter in "The Harvester" got quite poetic about it, in different aspects.

http://tinyurl.com/ncypj5s

First-year seedling plants aren't much use as a vegetable.  You want the spring shoots from ancient, massive roots, less than 8" tall, and fat as big toes, not yet purple. Absolutely delicious cooked in bacon fat! Allen Canning used to put up a lot of it in tin cans every year, but I hadn't seen it in the grocery stores lately: just found out why when googling for URLs to put in this.  I don't know whether Allen's actually had people growing it commercially, or paid woods-running kids for all they could bring in.  You just want to harvest the first shoots from the big established roots: if you don't leave some shoots to grow for the season, you kill the plant, and country people with good sense don't _want_ to kill the plant.
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=7054
http://www.allens-restructuring.com/
http://sagercreekveggies.com/#

It's a powerful and valuable medicinal: unfortunately, Big Pharma can't patent it.  The medicinal qualities are what makes it poisonous, of course.  Redneck herbalists used to preserve the berry juice to use in a Spring Tonic, but I don't know the formula.  Basic warning is never to eat the berries, just use them for ink and dye.  As a dye plant, it makes a gorgeous color, but the secret mordant that keeps the color from fading has been lost.  What my husband used to hate in terms of purple bird-shit on cars was the mulberry.

http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/p/pokroo57.html
http://www.herbalremediesinfo.com/poke-herb.html






-- 
Sibyl Smirl
I will take no bull from your house!  Psalms 50:9a
mailto:polycarpa3 at ckt.net