Pokeweed shoots, the greatest vegetable you've never had

I've looked forward to finally sharing the information in this video for two years now. I'm so happy you're getting to watch it! Have you eaten pokeweed before? If so, what part? Also, if you try the shoots after watching this video, let us all know how you liked them! (Don't forget to check out my Interactive Forager's Calendar in the description!)

I’m 90 and I remember being a kid during the depression. Poke was on the table often, along with wild onion/garlic and others. Maybe that has something with being in my 90th year?

I didn’t mention that this was only one of the foraged vegetables that my grandmother gathered for me. I almost lost my daughter when pregnant. I had poke weed 3 times a week if we could find them. Sassafras tea which came from my uncle’s farm in Kentucky. It’s the roots that are good and beneficial not the bark or leaves. And of course liver and lot lots lots of onions. Thank goodness I like liver the way my mother and her mother cooked them. There’s an art to making it. But that’s just 3 things that my grandmother made sure I ate to cleanse my blood. And it worked. There is another factor but can’t remember right now. But I was able to carry my daughter to full term. The land will heal you if you know where to look.

Poke used to be sold in cans as "poke salet" all the way until 2000 (Arkansas’ Allen Canning Company), when it became too difficult to obtain sufficient stock to make processing profitable. I am not able to have a garden, but there is a huge grouping of poke at the edge of the wooded area behind my house and I regularly collect the greens to eat. I haven't tried the stems and look forward to adding those to my rotation. Thank you!

I live in a rural area in VA with TONs of this stuff on our property.We also have some native berry brambles (not tasty, but edible.) We have wild aramanth, black cherry tree, walnut trees, what I believe is a native persimmon tree. Some very THICK growths of various docks, burdocks, lambsquarter. Tons of purslane and wild violet. And so so much more. I haven’t done much in the way of foraging due to health issues, but I do love the animals, birds, amphibians, turtles, reptiles and insects it attracts. My husband gets annoyed with how varied our yard is, but I absolutely love it and refuse to help him make it boring and not fauna friendly. This year we had a mama deer rest her fawn in our yard!

I really appreciate you calling out osu's lack of citations

If poke salad was that deadly then I'd be long dead. I'm 49 and have eaten this my whole life. It's really good. My pawpaw used to teach is how to harvest and prepare things most people call weeds. I really miss him. RIP pawpaw 💜

When I was a kid I knew and old lady who would fry the stalks in corn meal. They were tasty.

Older generations used to call it "Poke Sallet" but younger generations thought that their parents/grandparents were mispronouncing "salad" so they "corrected" it to "Poke Salad" but the older generation was correct. Salad is eaten raw. "Sallet" is an old word that means cooked greens. Poke sallet should only be eaten cooked. So just call it poke, or poke greens or poke sallet but don't call it poke salad because that gives people the idea to eat it raw and that could be unsafe.

Both sides of my family have been gathering, cooking, and eating poke for as long as anyone can remember, as have most of the older families around here. I know of very few who boil it, especially not in several changes of water. In most cases, the poke is gathered, then the leaves stripped. The stems are either skinned (because the skin can be stringy), chopped and sautéed or fried, breaded or not, and the leaves just roughly chopped and fried separately. My Dad even had a recipe for pokeberry wine for medicinal uses. The first time I ever saw that 'several waters' nonsense was actually in National Geographic in the 1980s. The whole family laughed at that, but that seems to be where most of that nonsense started. As I recall, the article was about someone who was 'foraging ' in Central Park. Anyway, thank you for working so hard to educate yourself and everyone else, and thank you for such well-made videos.

Growing up in Appalachia poke was a mainstay for my family. We boiled the greens then fried them bacon gtease. We coated the stems in corn meal and fried them. No boiling first. I'd love to have some right now!

Funnily enough this plant has a giant, massive, brother called Phytolacca dioica (the Ombu) that grows like a tree around here in it's native range. Gorgeous plant.

I dream of finding or even making a channel like this for my region (western WA, U.S.). You give the info in a way that is accessible without patronizing, and it is clear to me that you put in a lot of thought into the visuals. It's especially hard to convey texture and flexibility in verbal or video format, and you did a fantastic job here. The blending of traditional use and modern western science is also helpful (that shade thrown at OSU lol). I've never even seen pokeweed in real life, as it's not native to where I live. But by golly, I'll know what to eat if I'm ever in your neck of the woods! Thanks for posting these, keep up the good work.

Too bad you don't care for the leaves. I've eaten a lot of pokeweed over the decades, with picking and cooking passed down to me through generations. Those young shoots at 4:45 are perfect. They are not more toxic just because they are close to the roots. They are the most mild flavored of all the pokeweed harvests, but they aren't the most efficient picking for lots of food. I agree about the tender shoots, even the thick ones -- so delicious! But I like the big leaves, like you had on the stalks you were harvesting, too. They can provide a lot of food for a long season, especially if you keep the plants cut back for awhile so they keep sending up more shoots or keep branching out with new growth. Cutting an old not edible patch down to the ground in the late summer gives a good fall harvest, too. Such a great plant! Happy foraging!

I live in Hazel Green Alabama in a forest. It’s so nice to see a channel like this and with nearby food sources. I look forward to watching more videos.

Years ago I had some neighbors with a little boy who at the time was about 2 or 3 years old. I was out on my front porch when I saw the boy's grandma dragging him out of the bushes & the boy was covered in purple from head to toe. The grandma caught the boy eating poke berries. Everybody was terrified & they rushed him to the hospital. He just got a mild tummy ache 😂

I've eaten it all my life. The best fried okra I've ever had 😂

Thank you. That was very informative. I grew up eating poke leaves and still do. I can’t wait to try these.

I'll never forget my mother yelling at a landscaper in the yard. " Hey, poke ain't a weed around here" Thanks for the info

My brother, I'm very concerned that despite your claim that you are "preparing them properly" I haven't seen a scrap of fatback in this video. For real though, great video. Thanks for the knowledge.