Saturday, July 19, 2003 Further information on eating leaves
I was going to type more on the leaf-eating before, but then I went off to dinner at a restaurant called O'Charley's. So, you see, I'll eat any old comestible.
But poke greens...I felt so earthy and Southern. And yet so wrong. One of the biggest messages I got out of childhood was that poke berries aren't for eating. If you ate one, it would kill you, right there on the spot. Family members and concerned strangers alike drilled this into my head, due to their alarm over my habit of picking handfuls of miscellaneous berries and carrying them around. I was a weird kid.
But look, once someone has slapped a handful of pretty black berries out of your hand and yelled "Poison! Those are poison!" and totally freaked you out because you don't like loud noises, strangers, concern, or having your little paw slapped at, the lesson sinks in: this plant is not for eating.
So I used to smear the berries' bright red juice all over myself instead. I was the primitivist's answer to little Coco Chanel. Poke berry "nail polish" was my cosmetic of choice for like, years. Once this years' crop ripens I may try to revive the look.
I feel a deep attachment to this plant, you know? Also, it's everywhere around this town. There's more poke berries in the local biomass than there are decomposing Confederate war dead.
So, when the book I was typing all about last post said it was edible, I was psyched. The secret, the book said, was to pick leaves without any purple coloration, and then boil them for a taste treat.
It all seemed to dovetail together perfectly. My reducing diet calls for me to eat an actual vegetable every day, my pocket-book is empty except for coupons, and this fine, previously poisonous vegetable grows wild several feet from the back door of my building. The one possible downside was that it was near the mean dog's yard, but that day, the mean dog was inside or at the vet's or something, and he didn't bother me at all as I filled the pouch I'd improvised from the bottom of my t-shirt with leaves.
I really lorded it over the cats and dog at dinner time that night. They were all milling around and yelling and defecating on the floor in protest, because I'd served them the FMV (For Maximum Value) breed-specific brands of pet foods. "Grow up, you jerks," I told them. "You better count your blessings, alright? Because you know what I'm eating for dinner? Wet leaves!"
I wish this story had a good ending that didn't involve me waking up with sharp stomach pains a five the next morning, but that's really just what happened. I have a couple theories as to what went wrong. I maybe should have changed the water I boiled the greens in a couple times before I ate them, or maybe I shouldn't have picked leaves from such big, mature stalks. The main theory I have though, is that I ate some stuff I picked from the alley.
posted by Frenz | 7/19/2003 12:05:00 AM
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