Tradition or Insanity? Why Do We Eat Polk Salad?
Once the green leaves reach about 7 inches - they are filled with toxin and unsafe to eat. The stems, and root, are always full of this poison, and there is never a safe time or safe way to eat them. However, as long as the leaves are less than 7 inches long, this plant can be prepared safely and consumed, by carefully following a few simple steps.
1. Immediately after picking the polk greens, wash thoroughly in cold running water.
2. Immerse the cleaned greens in a pot of boiling water for 5 minutes.
3. Drain, and rinse the boiled greens with cold running water again, rinse boiling pot.
4. Refill pot with cold water and bring to a boil. Boil the greens again for 5 minutes.
5. Drain, rinse the greens again in cold water.
At this stage, the greens are now safe to eat. However, in the South, we cook them one more time by frying them in a skillet with some bacon fat. Some people also scramble eggs into the fried greens. You may add salt and pepper to taste, and some people like a little vinegar on them.
People are perhaps more familiar with the popular 1969 song, "Polk Salad Annie" by Tony Joe White, than they are the plant itself. The song, however, gives a pretty good description of the plant, and why - perhaps - we started eating these potentially dangerous greens.
"Down there we have a plant that grows out in the woods and the fields,
looks somethin' like a turnip green.
Everybody calls it Polk salad. Polk 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."
Published by Anna Swan
http://www.angelaswanlund.com View profile
- The Best Vietnamese Restaurants in San FranciscoI am Vietnamese and it is not often that I will rave about a Vietnamese restaurant. Here is a list of restaurants that I like to eat at to satisfy my cravings.
- Polk Salad, Wild Growing Perennial that is a Springtime Favorite Recipe in the SouthPolk salad is similar in taste and texture to other greens, like mustard and turnips.
- Cold WaterWhy one should not enter cold water and how to get a victim out of cold, running water
- Tips for Running in Hot WeatherEven in today's modern times, running is probably the most common from of cardiovascular exercise people choose to participate it. When comparing running in hot weather to running in cold, there are some things to ke...
- Five Safety Tips to Help Keep Your Teens Safe on MySpaceMySpace can riddled with false profiles, online stalkers or worse. Parent's need to consider these important guidelines to help keep their children safe when using any using online social networking site.
- Six Great Nature-Themed Venues in Florida Are Found in Polk County
- Elvis Presley: That's the Way it is Special EditionShows Vegas in 1970
- Top 10 (Accessible) Songs of Mardi-Gras
- Arab, Alabama: My Home Town
- Guide for Folks New to the South, Part 4
- Cafe Review: The H20 Cafe in San Francisco, CA
- Louie Mack's Steakhouse in Lakeland, Florida: A Restaurant Review
- Sometimes called American Nightshade
24 Comments
Post a CommentBeing in spring, I watch carefully emerging hints of polk when I start mowing the grass. Once you see it and eat it, you might mow as reverently as I do. Mostly it will be in the fence line or perhaps under high utility lines or trees. There is a secret about polk. When allowed to fully mature, polk can grow taller than most men and produce deep dark purple berries. Ripe berries can be squeezed and used for ink or squished on your brother. Birds eat these berries. Later, as birds will do, they leave their droppings from their perch. Those dropping from digested polk berries become polk plants.
Polk plants can be moved (sometimes) and may emerge from the roots of last years matured plants. Don't count on it. I still think birds sit in mature plants, eat their fill of berries,and poop right there.
Fill funny about rejoicing from the harvest formerly digested berries. Google "world's most expensive coffee."
Polk Salad is way better than collard greens, mustard greens, spinnish and all the other southern greens. Pick it and cook it good, two or three times, only the young leaves, season it eat it as a side dish or with noodles of odles. You could never starve once you could find this herb.You do not have to buy it . Some people call it pork salad but the name is polk salad.For more information, Google it.
Polk salad can not be brought i do not believe, however it grows wild here in the southern states during the spring and summer months, and people usually mow it down without truly appreciating its taste or value. I bet you could prpbably grow it in California maybe....but like so many others I am waiting till about April to began feasting on this southern delicacy.
I live in California and would like to find some canned polk salad if available
I live in Los Angeles and I want some polk salad where can I buy some?
I was born & raised in the Arkansas Delta & now live in Alabama. I have eaten "dock" and "polk salad" all my life & that includes the stalks. It's tradition to eat it because back in the old days it just might be the only thing you had to eat. I grow it in my back yard & love it!
My mother harvested poke shoots every spring, boiled them twice, then fried them with eggs and pork brains. You heard me right, pork brains. I ate this as a child, but now I would not touch it with a 10 foot pole.
To cook greens, I combine 2 parts dock, 2 parts poke, 1 part lambs quarter and 1 part dandelion greens to make a good bait of greens. I cook about 3 gallons total with bacon and then freeze in quart freezer bags for winter. I have eaten poke stalk all my life. You cut up young stalk, dip in egg and milk, roll in flour and fry. All greens and stalks should only be gathered in the spring of the year.
HEY ANONYMOUS....DIDN'T SEE YOUR POST WHEN I PUT MY FIRST ONE ON.....PASS THE FRIED POKE STALK RECIPE DOWN HERE TO ME. POKE SALAD IS GOOD MANY WAYS AND THE BIGGER IT GETS IS WHEN YOU PAR-BOIL IT A FEW TIMES. WHEN IT'S YOUNG, YOU CAN GET BY WITH DOING IT ONE TIME......DON'T TRY TO PROCESS THE STALK FROM THE RED AREA, KEEP IN THE GREEN PART
i HAVE LIVED AROUND POLK WEED OR SALAD MOST OF MY LIFE AND HAVE ATE IT MANY TIMES.I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE THE RECIPE FOR FRIED POLK STALKS THAT IS SIMILAR TP FRIED POTATOES...CAN ANYBODY HELP ME OUT