poke salad
Young pokeweed greens, boiled safe then fried like other Southern greens.
Also called poke sallet, polk salad.
Updated September 24, 2026
poke salad pronunciation
/POKE SAL-it/
Meaning
Poke salad (often poke sallet) is a mess of pokeweed leaves cooked down for the table. You only take young spring leaves, boil them hard and pour the water off, then finish them in a skillet, usually with bacon grease. Raw poke, berries, and roots can make you sick, so this dish is foraged knowledge, not a casual weed snack. For a lot of Appalachian and Southern families it was free supper when money was thin and the truck patch came up slow.
How folks use it
- “Mama sent us after a mess of poke salad before the stalks turned purple.”
- “That poke salad tastes fine once you boil the bitterness out of it.”
Origin and etymology
Sallet is an old word for cooked greens, from French salade. Poke is pokeweed (Phytolacca americana), common along Southern roadsides and creek banks. Tony Joe White's hit "Polk Salad Annie" put a swamp spelling on the radio, but country cooks still say poke sallet.
Frequently asked questions
Can you eat poke salad raw?
No. Young leaves have to be boiled and drained right, or the plant can poison you. Skip the berries and roots.