Appalachian Word of the Week -- MESS

My Appalachian word this week is MESS.

Although there are several uses of the word “mess” in Appalachia, and I have been told many times that I am one of those types of mess

and have been responsible for leaving another type of mess, 

the one I am concentrating on this week refers to a MESS of food.

A MESS is the amount of a food item you gather for a meal. The size of a MESS varies, according to the number of people who will be eating the meal. That means a MESS for just me is much smaller than a group of six people. A group of twelve or more would require an even larger MESS.

Although a MESS can refer to a variety of food items, in my family it generally referred to green beans, Swiss chard, tomatoes, green onions, or any other food we grew in our garden. It also referred to wild blackberries or other berries.

However, in my household, we also gathered a MESS of uncultivated greens from our yard.

Last week I told you about poke, but there are several other greens available. Greens that aren't as potentially toxic.

Poke

My mother regularly sent me out into the yard to collect plantin’, dandelions, and violets to cook up a good MESS of greens for dinner.

Plantin'

Wild Violets

Dandelions

She cleaned them up (you never knew which critter had stopped for a visit), trimmed them, and threw them into a pot of boiling salted water to cook. In an area where fresh vegetables were usually limited to what you had on hand, the variety of wild greens was a healthy change to the regular menu and extended the supply of canned vegetables from the previous year.

Have you ever eaten the weeds from your yard? If so, what did you serve up?