Poke Salat not Poke Salad and Wild Game

I was asked for a poke salat recipe and any recipes for cooking squirrel. We called it salat and that seems to be the further south you go. Doesn't matter what you call it, poke salad or salat, as long as when you serve it, we get called to dinner!!   I like to have pictures of cooking the dish for the blog. It is just the wrong time of year for it. But I will post a brief write up and later put a more in-depth article.

It is not poke salat season and we haven't hunted any squirrels this year yet. We are just not hungry enough.

Poke Salat as we called it in my family, grows wild all over Appalachia. It has white tiny flowers in the early summer and then the stem begins to turn purple with purple poisonous berries by the fall. When it begins turning purple, we never mess with it much. This is usually in our area about middle to late June.

My Ed in the spring time "grazes" on wild plants. I can tell he's found some tidbit because usually for some reason he has some in his beard. Whether it be the tender shoots of a cattail plant, dandelion, sour grass or wild violets, spring time is grazing time. If he is walking in the woods in the spring, he's eating.  In the old days the folks knew that there were many things in the wild to eat. You didn't always have to go to the store to have food.

Now I've read we are not suppose to eat Poke salat. It's supposed to be poisonous all year. Well someone forgot to tell my folks that because they would eat it just about every spring. I'm going to share how they prepared it and then you are on your own. 

We only gathered Poke salat in the Spring to early summer before blooming. Young plants about 6 to 8 inches tall.  In the fall it's just too strong. We would boil it and rinse it in cold water, twice. This is what gets rid of any toxins I guess. We treated skunk cabbage the same way. Skunk cabbage grows in wetlands in the spring. When really young it tastes like cabbage. When it gets older we prepare it the same way we do Poke Salat.  We just thought boiling and rinsing would rid the dish of the bitter taste and for skunk cabbage the smell!

Momma, after boiling and rinsing the Poke, would then put it in a skillet, add some bacon grease with chopped onions and cook until tender. Then serve with some vinegar.  Sometimes it would be mixed with other greens such as water cress or young lettuce in what we called scalded lettuce. Some folks treat it just like cooked spinach and add it to other ingredients such as eggs. But you have to pick it when it's not too old, and boil it and rinse it...TWICE! That's the trick.

NOTE: After first posting this next part I didn't realize so many were so sensitive to the hunting of wild game. I'm sorry if it offends you but if you eat any type of animal or fish meat, you kill that animal or fish. Doesn't matter that it was wild or raised, or if it's wrapped in a package from the grocery store or served as a dish in a restaurant.  Even vegans should realize that all plants are LIVING THINGS and can respond to music. My grandfather would talk to a tree when he had to cut it for wood and thank it for giving of it's life so that he could use it to live and be warm.

It's part of the Appalachian culture to live off the land and that includes hunting wild game.  It's really the way of the world to kill things to use, animal or plants.....and I just think if you are reading this blog about Appalachians, it is in our heritage and culture and you just have to get over it.

Squirrel....the real trick to any wild game is what you do right after you hunt and kill it. Doesn't really matter the recipe.  Nothing amazes us more to see a hunter with any game he's killed, riding around with it for hours in the back of a truck. Many never taking the time to field dress it (or even know how to field dress properly, yes there are glands you have to watch out for) and then wonder why it tastes so awful or gamey after they cut it up and when they go to eat it.  Learn to field dress as soon as you shoot it and it won't be so gamey!!

If it's fairly warmer weather don't stop by the bar before you go home to process it either. I guess this is the difference in hunting for sport or hunting to eat. We always plan on eating what we hunt or we don't kill it. There is no need to.

After skinning an animal and cutting it up, we soak any wild meat in salt water over night and rinse it before we cook or freeze it. Then for squirrel...fry it using much the same recipe for fried chicken and make gravy.

If it's a fat meat like ground hog or bear, I like to parboil before roasting or cooking. But still, for bear meat, I don't care what anyone does to prepare it. I'm not a big fan of bear meat. Bear's stink, live or dead, and I just don't like that smell. Even a hint of it but that's just me.  When we get some wild game in here, I'll try to get Ed to help me make a video lesson on processing, preparing and cooking.  But if you can't wait, there are already plenty online to learn from.

Dandelion Wine!!! Whoo HOO it's Spring! Uh...I mean Dandelion Jelly! Recipes!

Well hopefully ya'll can read this. I promise I will work on this design thing on this blog. First I forgot I had a blog then I felt a little like Dennis the Menace with a button that needs pushing. Wowwww!!!.... lookey, new design plates on Blogger!! Click! Oh...Crap!!  Have not a clue what I am doing but I will learn. Unfortunately anyone reading this will have to suffer until I figure it out! If your looking for the ditsy Appalachian historian who has CFS...you are in the right place!

Now let's talk Dandelions!!! While most people are trying to kill dandelions in their yard, we don't! That's food and medicine.  Yes, John Boy there is more than one type of "recipe".

You can fry the blooms and eat them with eggs, you can eat the leaves like a salad, or you can pick the blooms, process them and make jelly and WINE!  I'm going to post my two favorite dandelion jelly and dandelion wine recipes at the end of this article.

I looked out the window a couple weeks ago and just saw a sea of huge yellow flowers in the yard. Just about covered the whole yard. Now dandelions grow but this "sea" usually happens when the cicada's are coming back. They come up out of the ground and I believe they aerate the yard or something making dandelions get big yellow blooms on them. I was inspired.

I hadn't made anything out of dandelions in YEARS!  One of the last times was when a girlfriend and I decided the dandelions on the municipal court lawn in Radford were the prettiest, largest blooms we had ever seen.  We grabbed a bucket, bent down on hands and knees and waved at all those going to court while anticipating our future dandelion wine. That's been some years ago! Now it's all the rage to kill dandelions and if any were to show up on that lawn today they would probably be poisonous. Be careful where you pick.

Now with my illness I have to do this in stages. Modern appliances help with this. Not unusual to hear at my house, "Mom, what's this bucket of Dandelions in the refrigerator?"  So I pick them one day and rinse them, process them the next and boil them, then cook the juice into what I want another day. If it were not for this in stage stuff, I'd never get anything made in my shape. But if you have the energy in an afternoon you can have jelly and wine in process.

My grand daughter helping me pick asked me, "Granny, what are you going to make with this?"  "Why I'm gonna make WI...uh...Jelly, little one." She's six so she was calling my jars of jelly Wi-jelly until I fessed up that we also have a small bit of wine brewing.

Blooms Boiling in a pot NO GREENERY!

Now the trick to dandelion jelly and wine is you ONLY USE THE BLOOMS! NO GREENERY! This is a pain in the butt to have to process but worth it because otherwise your jelly, wine whatever comes out a bit bitter. I like to gather just the blooms and rinse them under water. Kind of funny because sometimes the cold water hits them and they will just close up. I take scissors and cut off the base of the flower and then pick the green part from the petals. Put the petals in a measuring cup so I know when I can stop. LONG PROCESS. An ice cream bucket full yields enough for jelly or wine.


Greenery left after a bucket full of processing. Makes my fingers hurt!

The jelly reminds me of honey and you have to use a pectin to make it jell. The wine...just reminds me of warm days. I like to keep some back just for winter, makes you feel warm just thinking about making it.

Here are the two recipes I use:

Dandelion Jelly

Pick enough to process and get 1 quart of bright, fresh, dandelion blossoms. Rinse them quickly in cold water to remove any insects. Using scissors, snip off the stem and remove the green collar under each blossom.

In an enameled saucepan, boil the dandelion petals in 2 quarts of water for 3 minutes. Cool and Strain, pressing the petals with the fingers to extract all the juice. Measure out 3 cups of dandelion liquid. Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 1 package of powdered fruit pectin (1 3/4 ounces).

Add 5 1/2 cups of sugar, stirring to mix well. Continue stirring and boil the mixture until jelly stage. A candy thermometer works well here unless you are like Granny Burress and can "smell" when it's jelly.

Pour into small glasses and cover with melted paraffin when the jelly is cool.

Dandelion Wine

 Ingredients:
1 quart processed dandelion blooms
1 gallon boiling water
1 package active dry yeast (.25 ounce)
8 cups of white sugar (I've used as little as 5 and it came out fine)
1 orange, sliced
1 lemon, sliced

Pick enough to make 1 quart of bright, fresh dandelion blossoms processed. Rinse quickly in cold water to remove any insects. Process using scissors, snip off the stem and remove the green collar under each blossom until you have 1 quart (4 cups).  Heat 1 gallon of boiling water. Place dandelion blossoms in the boiling water and let boil 4 minutes.  Strain, pressing the petals to extract the juice.  Let the juice cool to at least 90 degrees. I test it like testing baby's milk.

Stir in the yeast, sugar, orange and lemon slices. Pour into either plastic gallon jugs or a 3 gallon crock or you can get fancy and use a plastic fermentor with a lock. If using jugs put a balloon over the mouth of the jug. It will expand. For my crock I just use saran wrap loose or even a garbage bag tied tightly. In the old days they just used a crock with a wooden lid or a barrel with a cork. Just keep it in a cool area for a couple of weeks until the bubbles stop.   Siphon the wine off of the lees and strain through a cheese cloth before bottling. You can use quart sized canning jars with rings and lids, an old brown jug, or old wine bottles. Best to age the wine for at least a couple of weeks if you can't wait. I leave mine as long as I can. Always consult your state laws on winemaking. Click Here for Virginia Laws

Hope you can enjoy your dandelions. Have any questions contact me.



Yep it's fermenting!

Now I share my recipes freely. And I copyright my words. You try to make a living on it and a pox will be heard!