Growing up on a small Mid-Missouri farm, we didn’t buy a lot of groceries from town.  There was a big garden, a small orchard and lots of wild berries to pick.  In the fall, one of the culled yearlings would be sent to the slaughter-house for butchering.  When I was a very little girl, the meat was kept in a storage locker at the packing plant.  When I was seven or eight, mother bought an upright freezer.  Since she and grandma were both fairly short, it made a lot of sense not to have to deal with the chest-type freezers.

All summer long, we picked, canned, pickled, preserved and froze food.  In the autumn, cabbages got hilled into a straw-lined pit, and covered with more straw, and then topped with some sheets of old tin roofing to keep the rain off.  Potatoes got stashed in a sort of mini-cellar (we didn’t have a real cellar), and the best apples were placed in boxes in the well-house.

In spite of all this bounty, by springtime we were all pretty tired of canned, frozen or pickled stuff.  The apples had long since gotten wrinkled and mealy–or thrown out for the chickens because they had developed rotten spots.  Spring had two flavor events that marked the changing of the seasons.

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The first was Sassafras tea.  To make Sassafras tea, you first locate a Sassafras thicket, and just as the ground is thawing, but before the sap rises, dig up one of the saplings.  Sassafras is an aggressive spreader, so a spring root or two isn’t going to do in the thicket.  Next, chop off the tree part and scrub down the root.  Put the root in a large pot of water, and set on the back of the stove to simmer.  Do not boil!  Boiling a sassafras root makes a nasty tasting tea.  Sweeten the resultant brew to taste–nectar of the gods!  These days, it is said that Saffrole contains carcinogens.  I’d like to note here that my grandmother was 83 when she departed this earth; and she died of a stroke, not cancer.  My mother had chronic pulmonary disease and anorexia; but not cancer.  I’m 57, and I’ve ingested a lot of sassafras.  So far, I’m healthy.

Aside from grazing violet wood sorrel and wild onions, the next big flavor boost for our diet was poke salet.  Poke grows wild just about everywhere in Missouri, so it wasn’t hard to pick a decent batch.  Poke tastes best (and is safest to eat) when it is little and tender.  Poke contains an alkaloid that makes eating the raw plant unsafe.  Preparation involves cooking the tender shoots and early leaves, and pouring off the water.

This spring, I didn’t have access to a sassafras thicket, so I had to content myself with mint/green tea.  I’ve been encouraging poke in my yard since I moved in.  It grows in odd corners around the yard.

This last Sunday, I picked a batch of poke.  I’m actually running a little behind on picking it; it is soon going to be too big.  As you can see, in a few minutes I had a nice sheave of poke. 

Next, I rinsed the poke to make sure it didn’t have any pollution residue (I do live in town these days) or bugs hiding out in the leaves.  Then I put it in a large pot with water and set it on the stove to “wilt”.

As soon as the poke looks thoroughly limp and the water has turned green, it is time to pour off the water and add some more clean water.  Then the poke goes back on the stove to boil again.

When it has cooked down some more, this second batch of water is poured off.  The poke, at this stage, is ready to actually cook for eating or be put in a jar for canning.  (This was also the first thing we started canning in the spring when I was a kid.) 

I’m not planning to can any this year, so I get my pans ready for cooking.  It tastes best if fried in bacon grease, but I didn’t have any on hand.  This is a lump of lard.

While I was getting my pans set up, William decided to investigate.  I told him that kitties don’t eat greens, but I don’t think he believed me!

While the greens are frying, I heat a can of Lima beans, a batch of frozen biscuits are baking, and one of those handy microwave bags of corn is heating.

 Stuff got shifted off the keyboard table to make space for dinner.  Not doing too bad on colors here…white, green, yellow..could use a touch of red.  So…What’s for dessert?

Fresh strawberries!  They taste really yummy with a plain biscuit and a cup of tea to wash it all down.  The berries aren’t local, but shipped in.  So…I’m guilty of indulging in food miles every now and then.