Quite a Year for Poke

I can’t decide whether asparagus or pokeweed is my favorite spring vegetable.  Last year poke was surprisingly sparse and late to develop, maybe because it was so rainy.  This year, however, is making up for last.

Poke (aka poke salat or poke salad) is coming up all over my yard, including places it’s never been seen before.  This makes it easy to pick, but we won’t be able to maintain the laissez-faire attitude of the past, when it only occupied our uncultivated back acre.  We’ll have to get after it before it gets established.  You can only eat so much!

When I tell folks who aren’t foragers that I eat poke, they are always quick to point out that it’s poisonous.  Well, yes, but only if you are stupid about it.  The spring shoots are delicious.  Everything else – mature stalks, leaves, roots and berries – are best avoided.  The shoots must be boiled in a generous lot of water until the red color has left the greens and migrated to the cooking water, about 5 to 10 minutes depending on how late in the spring they are picked.

I use a grapefruit knife to cut the stalks near the ground, making sure not to take any of the white root along with the stalks.  The root will keep sending up shoots, so the same site about a week after the first picking will be ripe for another harvest.

Ewell Gibbons, in Stalking the Wild Asparagus, recommends cooking in two waters and boiling poke until it’s reduced to mush, but then he treats all greens like that – the old Southern way.  Boiling only a minimum of time keeps them nice and fresh.  I strain them in a colander and then, just to be safe, run hot water over them to make sure all the cooking water is gone.

I find that sesame oil has a real affinity for poke.  Just a spoonful poured over a dish of poke while it’s hot makes an absolutely delicious vegetable dish.  I also like poke with eggs, in an omelet, frittata or added to scrambled eggs.

Poke will keep in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for a week or two.  I tried freezing it once, but it disintegrated upon defrosting.  So enjoy it in the spring – a truly seasonal vegetable!