Soup Beans

[2LaneCruzer]

Bless you 2Lane for using the correct "poke salit".

In our little town of Gainesboro, TN, there is an annual Poke Salit Festival.

What was the deal about boiling it, pouring off the water and adding fresh water? I believe the plant has some oxalic acid or some such that exhibits some poisonous qualities, but we never had a problem with it. We were told that the berries were poison, and not to eat them...so a bunch of us 5 & 6 year old neighborhood kids scrounded up a bunch of empty pop bottles, and made "poison pop". Thank goodness no one ever tried to drink any of it!

 

[Bird]

You'll find recipes online that recommend boiling, pouring the water off, boil it again, and pour that water off a second, or maybe even a third time. But we ate lots of it when I was a kid, and we always boiled it, then poured the water off and put fresh water on it ONCE before finishing cooking it. And that's also what I did last year. I like it better than spinach, turnip greens, and collard greens, although all are good.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Something we discovered a few years back, when we started gardening, was Swiss Chard. It is really good, I think, and there are lots of ways to fix it. One thing I noticed, is that most greens, Spinach especially, shrink considerably when they are boiled, so you better cook two or there times as much as you think you will need. Swiss Chard has less of a shrinkage problem.

 

[Bird]

Something we discovered a few years back, when we started gardening, was Swiss Chard. It is really good, I think, and there are lots of ways to fix it. One thing I noticed, is that most greens, Spinach especially, shrink considerably when they are boiled, so you better cook two or there times as much as you think you will need. Swiss Chard has less of a shrinkage problem.

I'm sure glad you reminded me that I needed to go pick some Poke Salit, so I just now got the biggest pot we have full and washed (one leaf at a time) and non appeared dirty at all after the recent rain. So now it's on the stove for the parboiling.