Hoodoo Highway

Poke Salad Annie

Ok, so my name is not Annie but Ann is my middle name. In Memphis, I have been swamped with poke salad growing outside my apartment on my patio. My patio has an area of dirt around it that is about 12 inches wide. It goes around my entire patio and is within the gate so it is my responsibility. This year it has become a poke salad garden. About a month or so ago I noticed all this stuff sprouting up. I did not pay much attention to it but it proliferated and started getting taller. My girlfriend Virginia was here in late June and pointed out that it was poke salad. Well duh! I should have recognized it since my mom had some in her back yard and she and my granny used to gather it and cook it with fried eggs.

Poke Salad is a southern thing. If you have no idea what it is, well then you have not been South. Either that or you have never heard Tony Joe White's song "Poke Salad Annie". I play that song on my show but play the version by Little Milton. It is a bit bluesier and, for some reason, always reminds me of my grandma. Poke Salad is poisonous and for that reason you have to prepare it carefully. You have to boil it a few times. I announced on the air that I had tons of it growing over here in Memphis and my buddy, Willie, called and said I needed to gather it up and take it home and boil it, then boil it again, then boil it one more time and cook it and eat it. I rejected that idea but told him he was welcome to come get it. Of course, no one got it because when I got here this week, it was outrageous!! I mean over the top of the fence. I gave up and went and bought some clipper things, a small rake and some Roundup. Tonight, I attacked the poke salad. I clipped it down, raked that up and then sprayed Roundup on all of it. I am hoping when I return next week, it will be dead. Poke Salad bites the dust. One tidbit I did learn about Poke Salad (and another compelling reason to not eat it) is that it grows by being left by a bird in a, shall we say, "deposit". Hmm, so I can deduce that for some reason my patio is just a huge bird toilet. This pic on the left is poke salad, just in case you were dying to see what it looked like!!

How do you take your poke salad?

posted by Deb @ 12:01 AM