Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) is a common wild edible plant in Easter United States, the Midwest, the Gulf coast, and scattered through Western United States.
It’s often found in pastures, along the edges of forests and trails, and along fences.
Identification:
Identifying pokeweed is fairly simple. Look for red stems, small white flowers that turn into green berries and then blackish/purplish when ripe.
Berries: Start out green, then are blackish/purplish when ripe.
Leaves: Lancelate, smooth.
Stems: Start out green, then turn red.
Flowers: Tiny, white, in racemes.
Toxicity:
Warning: The raw leaves and stems are poisonous as well as the raw or cooked berries or flowers!
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Edibility:
Pokeweed is the only modern day wild edible plant that was commercially canned and sold as a green. They stopped in the 1950’s in favor of crops, but it is still eaten by many people as a southern favorite.
Health Benefits:
Pokeweed helps cleanse the lymphatic cleansing, meaning
If your lymphatic system needs cleansing, you will have symptoms such as fatigue and sluggishness, brain fog, puffy skin, swollen and stiff joints, and chronic headaches and inflammation. While recovering from a cold or virus, you may need to dispose of more cellular waste when you’re sick.
It also can help speed healing from poison ivy.
Traditionally flavored with of bacon or bacon grease and molasses.
Pokeweed Greens
Ingredients
- 5 Cups Pokeweed Greens
- Salt to taste
- Bacon 5 strips
- 1 Tbsp Mollasses
Instructions
- Start two pots of water on the stove (covered), one the size to fit the poke that you have harvested, one at least 3 times this size
- When water has come to a boil in the small pot, and is close to or is boiling in the big pot, add chopped poke to small pot. Stir, so that all poke is submerged
- Cook for 2 minutes
- Pour water and greens into a collander and return them to the small pot.
- Pour fresh boiling water from the big pot over poke in small pot, cook for 2 minutes, or until water returns to a boil
- Repeat steps 4 and 5 one to three more times, depending on flavor preference, and tolerance of (and desire for) the lymphatic cleansing and poison ivy relieving effects of pokeweed
- Add salt and optional flavorings.
Notes
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Sources:
- “Pokeweed: How to Prepare “Poke Salad.” May 27, 2018. Wild Abundance. Accessed: June 28, 2020.
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