Death on a Plate: Poke and Pork

[sisabet]

What does one do with fresh beets? Fresh oregano (and by "fresh," I mean "still growing in the ground")? If you cut off the leafy tops of beets, does it turn into swiss chard? Cause it should. It looks like it should work.

Except then I remember my grandmother admonishing me about cooking poke greens and how it can be poisonous unless you do...well I can't remember what that is, which doesn't really seem to matter as I doubt I'll ever recognize it in the wild and be seized by the urge to grab a bag and start picking. But I have - in the past - with my grandmother, and I know not to do something with it, if ever that should come up. Also, I have the internets (which tell me that raw poke is very dangerous. How raw is too raw? Is this like that episode of House where the girl has the tapeworm in her brain? Cause seriously, I can't eat pork anymore and I miss porkchops. Wait. I still eat bacon - that is pork. Who am I kidding - I'll never be able to give up pork, tapeworm on the brain or not. I am Southern, yo. The Pig is a Magical Beast).

But are beet tops like poke?

This entire post is brought to you by my day off (but still on call. *eyes pager*)

Comments

[elynross.livejournal.com]

Pokeweed and beets are entirely unrelated. *g* I don't know if beet greens are cooked, or not. Here's a whole article on poke at wikipedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poke_salad)

[askye.livejournal.com]

You can eat beet greens, I think they can be slightly bitter so you might want to cook them with something milder like spinach. You should be able to cook them up like turnip greens or collards.

[coiledsoul.livejournal.com]

You can eat em. AS for the beets, there very good roasted in the oven.

When I was a little girl, my grandparents used to grow a row of beets and a row of turnips just for me. I was the only grandchild they had who would eat them. In fact I don't know any kids who would willingly eat strange root vegetabes. Wacky me.

In conclusion, pork rules.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

mmm, beet tops.

Pick them when the beets are just ripe, still baby beets, and then boil the whole thing, root and top.

Yummy!

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

Swiss Chard = Beet Greens. Alton Brown has a great recipe for beet green something or other here (http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_21883,00.html).

[crazydiamondsue.livejournal.com]

I now have "Poke Salad Annie" stuck in my head. I always saw poke beginning scrambled in eggs, which I assumed killed all nature of badness from both? My Granny lived to be 98 after a diet of it, in any case. Fresh beets I'm clueless on, only had them pickled.

In other random news - Spinal Tap was on today.

[rydra_wong]

AFAIK, beets and chard and sea beet are all pretty much the same plant, but bred for different traits - some for fat roots, some for leaf growth. There are even some varieties which are dual-purpose.

So you can totally cook beet greens as swiss chard, because basically they are.

[raveninthewind.livejournal.com]

I ike me beets boiled, peeled and chilled, sprinkled over salad. Oh just served as a side dish. I don't like any spices on fresh beets--they tasted fine plain to me. Roasted beets are good, too, though.

[missmurchison.livejournal.com]

I know nothing about beets, other than that they have a significant presence in borscht. However, I have lots of oregano and other herbs in my yard, and the only way to go wrong with oregano is using too much of it as a flavoring.

P.S. Want some tarragon? I have a tarragon bush that is trying to overwhelm the sage, chives and thyme. And sage doesn't overwhelm easily. There's going to be a war out there.

[tenar.livejournal.com]

most random comment ever:

i was musing over my userinfo today and noticed that someone else has "daddy adama" listed as an interest. this amused me to No End.