Wild Spring Plant Foods: The Foxfire Americana Library (7) (5 page)

Poke sallet: put greens in a boiler of cold water; wash two or three times. Drain off all the water. Fry in pan of hot grease. Add half teaspoon of salt. Let cool. Beat two eggs and stir in after greens have cooled. Serve with vinegar or pickle juice.

Fried poke stalks: cut whole poke plant off level with ground when young (four to seven inches high). Wash. Slice like okra. Roll in a mixture of salt, pepper, flour. Fry in grease until brown on outside and tender on inside.

Poke soup: take leaves and stalks when about six inches high. Boil, adding meat gravy and a little corn meal to thicken, until tender.

Poke-tuna roll: spread cooked poke leaves flat; put tuna fish along middle. Roll leaves to enclose the tuna fish.

Poke pickles: collect very young stalks, scrape, remove leaves, and pack in jars. Combine one cup vinegar, half cup sugar, one tablespoon salt, one stick cinnamon, several whole cloves. Boil, pour over poke, and seal.

Pokeberry wine: [While many people believe pokeberries are poisonous, Mrs. Carrie Dixon swears the wine is good medicine for rheumatism.] Gather ripe pokeberries, wash, and place in crock. Cover with cheesecloth and let set until it ferments. Strain off juice and sweeten to taste. Take a spoonful when your rheumatism acts up.

A common weed in gardens or cultivated fields, purslane grows
flat on the ground, with thick radiating stems, and small, pinkish fleshy leaves. Small yellow flowers in the leaf axils open only when the sun is shining. Seeds are in small lidded capsules.

I
LLUSTRATION 18
Purslane

Purslane is rich in vitamin C. The whole plant is edible before flowering, and adds bulk to other greens. Someone said, “It tastes sort of indefinite.” Young shoots can be added to soups as a substitute for okra, or pickled. Poultices of purslane were once used for inflammation of the eyes.

Pussley casserole: cook, drain, and chop fine. Add eggs and cracker crumbs, or crumbled cornbread. Bake. Top with grated cheese just before serving. Or put the cooked greens in baking dish with bread crumbs, onion or poke greens, and beaten egg. Bake at low heat.

Fried purslane: cook lightly, drain, chop, and mix with corn meal and beaten egg. Fry in drippings or bacon grease. Or fry bits of ham or salt pork, add vinegar and brown sugar, and simmer. Add chopped pussley. Serve hot.

Pussley salad: wash well and chop fine. Mix with salt, oil, and vinegar. Add cress or peppergrass for sharper flavor. Or add purslane to cress and dandelion, serve with vinegar and chopped hard-boiled egg.

Pickled pussley: cook wild onions with vinegar and one-quarter cup ground mustard seed. Simmer, strain, pour over pussley tips.

Pussley dumplings: chop fine. Mix with biscuit dough, salt, pepper, and butter. Make into balls, drop into soup or stew.

I
LLUSTRATION 19
Chickweed

Chickweed is a naturalized native of Europe, grows all year, and can be gathered in the winter months. It is an annual growing to eight inches high, with weak stems, and succulent, bright green leaves. Flowers are small, white, and star-shaped.

The whole plant is edible before flowering, and a good source of vitamin C in winter time. It can be used as a potherb, or in salads, or in soup instead of okra. It is good mixed with sheep sorrel, or peppergrass, or more sharply flavored plants. It was once believed to be a medicine to heal and soothe cancers.

The closely related mouse-ear
(Cerastium)
is also edible, but less flavorsome as the whole plant is covered with woolly hairs.

Creamed chickweed: parboil, strain, chop fine. Reheat with milk, butter, salt, and pepper.

I
LLUSTRATION 20
Peppergrass

Peppergrass is an annual weed, naturalized from Europe, and common in waste places. It grows to twenty inches tall with branched stems and small leaves. Tiny white flowers are followed by flat, peppery seed capsules. Young leaves are used in greens or raw in salads, and the seeds as a substitute for pepper.

Garden cress, or tongue grass
(Lepidium sativum)
, is sometimes planted in gardens, and escapes or runs wild. It has bright green, very peppery leaves, and round flat peppery pods. Seeds of both cresses can be ground and mixed with vinegar and flour as a substitute for mustard.

Greens: peppergrass is good with poke salad. It is not quite as tender as poke salad, and must be cooked five to seven minutes, when used in combination. Or mix it with other greens such as dandelions, lamb’s quarters, mouse-ear (chickweed), dock, or wild lettuce. Just cook peppergrass like cresses or turnip greens.

Peppergrass sauce: mix seeds with vinegar and a little salt. Use as a sauce on fish.

Pepper substitute: “You know the wild pepper plant? It blooms and has seed on it, just like little seeds in the pod of peppers, and you use that for seasoning.” Use in salads or on tomatoes (Mrs. Mann Norton).

I
LLUSTRATION 21
Shepherd’s purse

Shepherd’s purse is another common annual weed, growing to eighteen inches high. Flowers are white and followed by flat, heart-shaped seed capsules.

The young leaves can be cooked and added to salads; or the seeds used in salads, or ground and mixed with vinegar as a substitute for mustard. Use in the same manner as peppergrass in any of the same recipes.

Juice of shepherd’s purse on a piece of cotton will stop a nosebleed.

Wild radish grows to five feet high and is found in waste places. Leaves are coarsely toothed. Flowers are white or pale violet or yellowish with darker veins. Seeds are in a jointed pod.

Young leaves are used in salads with cooked greens, or in meat sauce. Young pods are cut up in salads.

I
LLUSTRATION 22
Wild radish

All of the mustards can be lumped together in terms of edibility, and any of them can be used in any of the recipes. Cultivated collards, turnip greens, and cultivated mustard varieties can escape or naturalize and grow wild in old garden spots. All these members of the mustard family are characterized by having flowers with four crosslike petals, and a smarting taste. All of the mustards contain vitamins A, B, B-2, and C, and minerals very important to health. Leaves of all should be gathered when plants are very young and tender. Their pungent odor will identify the plants at once. Most of them are best if first cooking water is drained off. They are good “blood purifiers” and much-favored spring tonics.

I
LLUSTRATION 23
Kenny Runion with wild mustard.

An erect, winter annual, occurring in cultivated fields and low places, white mustard is a native of Europe naturalized in this country. Leaves are rough, hairy, and greatly dissected. Pale yellow flowers are followed by bristly seed pods. Rich in vitamin C and sulfur, young leaves are used in salads, greens, and in sandwiches, and seeds ground up for mustard or mustard sauce.

This is another native of Europe, very weedy in cultivated fields. Leaves are large and very coarse, and strongly flavored. Clusters of four-petaled flowers are bright yellow. Leaves are edible when very young and tender. Seeds, when mature, are ground for prepared mustard. In olden days, black mustard was used in love potions to overcome lassitude in females.