Fit For The King

Poking along Ridge Road by bicycle, I stumbled upon a handsome example of a powerful plant.  Proudly in flower, and growing boldly out of a living maple tree trunk, it’s an herb of presidential politics and festive celebrations.  Used with skill it might cure, but cooked wrong it can easily kill.  ‘Twas once renowned enough to make the sensational swiveling singer from Memphis croon.  It’s a plant with a resume so slick it could turn a Harvard grad green.  I give you pokeweed.

Growing from Maine to Minnesota and southward, Phytolacca americana is an herbaceous perennial that pops up in pastures, cleared areas, fencerows and open spots in the woods.  Covered in simple green leaves, its purplish, branched stems can reach an impressive eight feet tall and bear elongated racemes of white flowers which become attractive purple berries.  This botanical exuberance is fueled by a deep and extensive root system.  While visually impressive, consider this:  the entire plant is poisonous, and swallowing enough may cause vomiting, spasms, convulsions, then death from respiratory failure. 

Despite this gruesome little fact, pokeweed has long been considered a culinary delight, especially below the Mason-Dixon.  The trick is to harvest only young leaves, before they exhibit any reddish pigment, and boil them thrice, discarding the water each time.  This regimen gives us the basic ingredient in poke sallet, which reportedly has a flavor between asparagus and spinach.  While it sounds simple, my advice is, “don’t try this at home.” 

A much safer option would be to bring your appetite to one of the four annual pokeweed festivals.  The doings in Harlan, Kentucky feature a poke sallet feast with side dishes of boiled eggs, green onions, cornbread and buttermilk.  A cooking contest gives $25 prizes for the best poke recipe, appetizer, and dessert.  Whether one has to be an expert in poke preparation to enter is unclear, but I imagine the judges pay up on their life insurance before the tasting.  And the one tune sure to be blaring from the loudspeakers is “Poke Salad Annie,” popularized in the ‘70’s by none other than Elvis Presley.

What might drive people to eat the horticultural equivalent of a hand grenade?  One historic reason would be plain hunger, especially problematic in spring, the “safe” period for poke.  Eventually, poke sallet became a supermarket staple, sold by the Allen Canning Company of Siloam Springs, Arkansas.  Medicinally, topical applications of pokeweed were used to treat itching, inflammation and acne, while careful ingestion might aid arthritis, mumps, or constipation.  Recently, investigations have probed the use of poke extracts in curing cancer and HIV-AIDS.

But wait!  There’s more.  As a child, a friend and I collected a large jar of poke berries and spending an afternoon squeezing a wonderful juice that permanently stained our shirts.  We didn’t know this same stuff was dye to Native Americans and ink for Civil War soldiers.  Supporters of Polk’s candidacy wore a sprig of poke, a potent plant for the least known consequential president.