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?

Appalachian Word of the Week -- POKE

My Appalachian word this week is POKE.

This one might be a tad confusing to non-mountain folks. There are two kinds of POKES we refer to in the mountains.

The first kind of POKE is the one you get when you go shopping for your groceries. The paper type, that is. Some of you may call it a sack or a bag. In my part of the country we called it a POKE.

You know the term “pig in a poke”? Well, that’s what the POKE is. Aren’t you glad you finally know what they’re talking about?

There’s also another type of POKE. It’s a green leafy plant that grows wild, uncultivated. In my hometown of Harlan, Kentucky, we even have a POKE Sallet Festival every June to celebrate the POKE weed. If you don’t know what a SALLET is, come back next week to find out.

Special thanks to Corinne Farley for this photo

There’s an important secret about POKE before you go out, gather the plants, and eat them on your own. It’s TOXIC. Yep, it can make you quite ill and can even kill you. Because of that, you need to know exactly how to harvest and prepare POKE to keep from killing anyone.

Here is the link to a Youtube video showing how to harvest and prepare POKE properly.

Most of the people I know add scrambled eggs to their POKE. It can be a tad bitter and the eggs calm down the flavor.

Here’s the Poke Sallet Recipe

1.    Remove Poke leaves from plant

2.    Rinse Pokeweed leaves in cool water

3.    Bring leaves to rolling boil in large pot for 20 minutes

4.    Pour leaves into sieve (colander) and rinse in cool water

5.    Repeat Steps 3 and 4 two more times

6.    Panfry Poke leaves for a couple of minutes in bacon grease

7.    Add crushed bacon, salt and pepper to taste (or add and scramble eggs)

8.    Serve and enjoy

One more secret of the POKE weed plant. As the season progresses, purplish berries appear on the top of the plant. Those berries seem to be the most toxic part of the plant. If you put a berry into your mouth and chew it, you will probably die.

However, some Granny Women and current day natural medical practitioners swear by the healing qualities of those POKE berries if they are swallowed whole without biting or chewing.

Feeling lucky? Me either. I’ll leave the whole POKE plant to someone else to risk, thank you.

So, do you think you would ever try POKE sallet? If so, I recommend you travel to Harlan, Kentucky next June and try it at the POKE Sallet Festival. Check out their website at: 

http://www.pokesalletfestival.com/. 

Make sure you choose a vendor with a long line of repeat customers.