Nature How People Use Wild Plants Poke Salat

Poke Salat

Salat is the German word for salad, and probably came to the Ozarks with German settlers. Poke salat is made from Pokeweed. In towns you'll find pokeweed growing wild in alleyways and vacant lots. In the country it grows in the fence rows and along the edges of woods. When mature it has clusters of shiny purple berries which birds love to eat.

After a long winter without fresh food, the early settlers looked forward to cooking the first tender green leaves of pokeweed. It gave them vitamins and was a good spring tonic. They'd cook it up with lamb's quarters and dock, which are also early spring greens. Some people today still cook and eat poke greens in the early spring.

Though the whole plant is poisonous, the young leaves can be eaten after cooking them using two changes of water. Poke is still used medicinally. Old timers in the Ozarks still eat one pokeberry a year as a preventative or to treat arthritis.

Here's a recipe for Poke Salat

Marideth Sisco, a native Ozarker, remembers her mother cooking poke. "Poke salat was made by boiling poke in two waters," says Sisco. "My mother used the fresh and very young leaves, washed them, then boiled them in a pot of water for one or two minutes. Then she'd throw out that water, add just enough water to keep them from scorching and continue cooking until tender. She'd season them with bacon drippings. I prefer a little butter and lemon juice. Either way, it's good for what ails you. It looks like spinach and tastes a bit like asparagus."