Been out picking poke today and I always think of two people when I do it. By the way, it's an annual affair for me. I try to get enough picked so I won't have to heat up my outside burner to boil it off three times. Joan won't let me cook it in the house, she says it "stinks" the place up too bad.
Course it has to be boiled THREE times with the water poured off each time. Guess it pours the poison out of it. On the third boil, I add the wild onions that I also pulled along the highway right-of-way. Guess folks think I picking up cans when I'm out there in the road ditches.
The TWO I always think of are: daughter, Elicia, and good friend, Bob Blake. This goes back to this story from about 1971 or 1972.
Bob was down visiting from New Jersey and Elicia was 6 or 7 years old and wanted to go pick poke. Now if you don't know what poke is, it's a weed that grows wild that is really poisonous if you eat it wrongfully prepared.
Anyway, we started off on the journey with knife and paper bag in hand. Bob was watching and really taking this in. Well, we brought it home, washed it, and gave it to Elicia's mother to prepare. We had it for supper, and I really thought THAT was all of it.
HOWEVER, several months later we were in Chicago at a meeting of Dodge Inc. Trophy Co. and Bob and I were there. Bob was asked about visiting the Dodge facility in Texas and what impressed him the most about it.
(Ya got to know Bob and his humor to really appreciate this, and he tried to talk with a southern drawl like Elicia did and still does.) Anyway, he said,"The urine salad Bill's wife prepared for us to EAT".
To say the least, I was totally shocked. Yep! I was shocked!
He said, "Bill and Elicia took me into the woods with a knife and paper sack, and she said, 'thar's won daidy', and Bill would go clip it off and put it in the bag. Then when the bag was full, we took it home and Elicia's mother boiled the piss out of it THREE times, and then we ate it." End of that story.
But every year when I go after poke salet, I always think of Bob and Elicia and the "urine salad".
Course it has to be boiled THREE times with the water poured off each time. Guess it pours the poison out of it. On the third boil, I add the wild onions that I also pulled along the highway right-of-way. Guess folks think I picking up cans when I'm out there in the road ditches.
The TWO I always think of are: daughter, Elicia, and good friend, Bob Blake. This goes back to this story from about 1971 or 1972.
Bob was down visiting from New Jersey and Elicia was 6 or 7 years old and wanted to go pick poke. Now if you don't know what poke is, it's a weed that grows wild that is really poisonous if you eat it wrongfully prepared.
Anyway, we started off on the journey with knife and paper bag in hand. Bob was watching and really taking this in. Well, we brought it home, washed it, and gave it to Elicia's mother to prepare. We had it for supper, and I really thought THAT was all of it.
HOWEVER, several months later we were in Chicago at a meeting of Dodge Inc. Trophy Co. and Bob and I were there. Bob was asked about visiting the Dodge facility in Texas and what impressed him the most about it.
(Ya got to know Bob and his humor to really appreciate this, and he tried to talk with a southern drawl like Elicia did and still does.) Anyway, he said,"The urine salad Bill's wife prepared for us to EAT".
To say the least, I was totally shocked. Yep! I was shocked!
He said, "Bill and Elicia took me into the woods with a knife and paper sack, and she said, 'thar's won daidy', and Bill would go clip it off and put it in the bag. Then when the bag was full, we took it home and Elicia's mother boiled the piss out of it THREE times, and then we ate it." End of that story.
But every year when I go after poke salet, I always think of Bob and Elicia and the "urine salad".
1 comment:
Are you the same Babcock from Dodge Trophies off Great Southwest Parkway in Grand Prairie Texas? Around 1973?
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