Boil the Devil Out

They were driving Joe's old Toyota Tacoma out to Irena's grandmother's house when Irena spotted something near the fenceline.

"Wait! It's poke!" Irena yelled, throwing her hands up in the air.

"What?" Joe hated it when Irena yelled out while he was driving. Usually, she was yelling about traffic, but now they were on an isolated dirt road with no one else around. What could she possibly be excited about?

"Stop! Back up!"

"Why?"

"Please." Irena searched through the window for the spot where she had seen the pokeweed.

Joe put the truck in reverse and slowly backed up.

"There." She pointed to a patch of green plants of varying sizes, the largest about three feet tall. "It's spring, and time to make Poke Salet." She jumped out of the truck and ran to the side of the road.

Joe put the truck in park and got out. "What is Poke Salet?" He was very suspicious of Irena's enthusiasm for roadside weeds. Usually, he preferred to have his food wrapped in plastic from the grocery store. To get to the plants Irena was pointing to meant crossing a small ditch through high grass and weeds. It looked like ideal territory for poison ivy, ticks, snakes, and other noxious creatures. Joe was a tick magnet and had no intention of walking off the road for something he had never seen or heard of before.

"Let's get some. We're close to Granny's house, so we can cook up a mess when we get there." Irena surveyed the ditch, looking for the easiest access.

"Wait." Joe reached for Irena's arm and turned her to face him. "Tell me more about what you plan on doing. What is poke?"

Joe had never dated anyone like Irena. She was a country girl for sure and sometimes had wild ideas about things. She was superstitious about many things. Breaking a mirror was seven years of bad luck. Walking under a ladder was bad luck. A black cat crossing your path was bad luck.

She truly believed that if your nose itched, someone was coming over hungry. If your ears burned, someone must be talking about you.

She spent a whole day looking for a horseshoe to hang above her apartment doorway. She even had to call her grandmother to learn which way to hang it once she found one.

She would jump over a sidewalk crack and always sing out, "Step on a crack, break your mother's back."

In the food department, she had some strange traditions. She insisted on taking black-eyed peas to his best friend's New Year's Eve party. She told everyone they had to eat at least a spoonful of the peas—which Joe thought tasted a lot like dirt—to have good luck all year.

In the kitchen, she always threw a pinch of salt over her left shoulder to blind the devil waiting there.

She would dry out the wishbone of a chicken or turkey and talk Joe into pulling it with her, believing the person with the longer end would get a wish to come true.

She believed garlic would ward off the "evil eye." She hung a string of it over her doorway beneath the horseshoe.

A walk in the park with Irena would reveal her vast knowledge of plants and how her family, especially her grandmother, used this or that to heal this or that. She was often very vocal about the wastefulness of lawns and how they would make great places for growing food and medicine. She would walk barefoot in the dirt, and if it had just rained, she was even more enthusiastic about the mud between her toes.

Now she was telling him about pokeweed.

"The weed is very poisonous. You have to cook it just right. Don't worry, I know how. You have to cook it right away after you pick it." She was excited to jump the ditch, pick the weeds, and hurry to Granny's house to cook them.

"Do you remember 'Poke Salad Annie—gator got your granny'?" she called back to Joe.

"No."

Irena started singing the old song. "Everybody said it was a shame, 'cuz her papa was a-workin' on a chain gang." She laughed and trudged through the ditch without a care. She was focused on getting the pokeweed.

Joe waited on the road.

Irena came back with an armload of pokeweed. It had a strong, earthy smell. She was grinning like she had just won the lottery.

"It's free food!"

"I don't know about this. If it is dangerous, maybe we should not try it on this trip. I would hate to get sick at your grandmother's house." Joe looked a little pale just thinking about eating weeds found on the side of the road.

"Oh, you don't know what you're missing. I'm gonna cook up a mess just for you. You will love it. Trust me." For Irena, it was matter-of-fact. She put the weeds in the bed of the truck near the front, where they wouldn't blow around too much, and hopped in.

"Come on, let's go!"

Joe got back in the truck. He looked into the truck bed and shook his head. This girl was going to kill him, he knew.

When they arrived at Granny's house, Irena scooped up the precious weeds and ran up on the porch.

"Granny, we picked some poke on the way in. Joe's scared to death I'm going to poison him."

Granny got up from the comfortable rocking chair where she'd been waiting and watching the road for her favorite granddaughter to come for a Sunday visit. She wrapped her arms around Irena. Her laugh was like running water, clear and clean.

"Poison him? Where's that boy from who ain't never had no poke salet?"

"Granny, this is Joe. He's the handsome city slicker I've been seeing." There was a twinkle in Irena's eyes. She reached over and pulled Joe into the embrace. He stumbled a little but felt engulfed in Granny's giant breasts that hung to her waist and Irena's enthusiasm.

He cleared his throat. "Ahem... pleased to meet you, Mrs..."

"Call me Granny. Everybody else does." She took Irena's hand. "Let's cook up a mess of poke salet." They disappeared into the house.

"Yes, he's mighty cute." She gave her granddaughter a wink.

Joe was left standing on the porch. He looked around at the old house and the grounds—no lawn there. Besides the dirt path leading to the house, every square inch of the property was planted and tended with loving care. There were lawn ornaments and painted tires. There were trellises with flowers and trellises with peas. There was a patch of corn just coming up. There was an old tractor and tools lying around, some rusty as hell. It was too much to take in all at once.

Joe opened the screen door and went into the house, following the women.

He could hear their laughter on the back porch. He suspected he was the brunt of the joke. Joe felt like a fish out of water as he looked around the old house. It was dark and a little too warm. The furniture was old and worn.

He joined the women on the back porch. There was a big table. There was an old stove. It was like something out of a museum—big and chipped, white, and putting off a tremendous amount of warmth. There were pots of varying sizes, some so big Joe couldn't help but wonder what they might be used for. Irena set the pokeweed on the table and got one of the larger pots to start the cooking process.

Joe had never seen anything like this outdoor kitchen. There were eight old straight-back chairs around the table. From the rafters hung bundles of drying plants, herbs he suspected. There was a sweet smell and a tray of homemade cinnamon rolls lying on a counter. He felt like he had stepped back into the 1940s.

Irena filled one of the larger pots with water from the sink. She rinsed the pokeweed. Granny was putting wood in the antique stove. As casual as could be, she said, "Joe, bring up some more wood. We're going to need a lot to boil the devil out of this poke."

Joe saw the giant woodpile out in the backyard and walked down to get an armful.

Irena said, "Granny always says if you want someone to feel comfortable, put them to work. Just watch out for those sleepy snakes."

The women giggled.

As Joe brought in an armload of wood, Granny explained, "We're going to boil this poke, then we're going to pour the poison water off and boil it again. Then, just to be sure, we're going to pour that water off and boil it again. Then we're going to fix it up with something special."

Joe could smell the unique, pleasant aroma of the pokeweed cooking. He realized he knew nothing whatsoever about the lifestyle he was witnessing.

The poke boiled for ten minutes, more or less. Irena asked Joe to help pour the contents into a mesh strainer, letting the water run right off the side of the porch.

Irena rinsed the pokeweed, then filled the pot again. Granny kept the woodstove going. The poke boiled again for about ten minutes. This process was repeated a total of three times.

By the time the pokeweed had been boiled three times, it amounted to a reasonable volume of greens.

Granny said, "OK, honey, I do believe we have a good batch." She wiped her hands on her apron and handed Irena a straw basket. "Gather up a half dozen for me."

Irena took the basket and grabbed Joe's hand.

"Let's go!"

"Where?"

"Out to the coop, of course."

Honestly, Joe had never been inside a chicken coop. It had a strong smell, but it wasn't unpleasant. Two hens graciously moved aside so Irena could take their eggs. Joe picked four more out of four empty nests. The eggs were warm and a little dirty.

"Oh, look how sweet they are!" Irena exclaimed as she peered into the basket.

Six gorgeous eggs.

Back on the porch, Granny was putting a large spoonful of something white into a well-worn cast-iron skillet.

"Now, cut a slab of the bacon for me." She pointed to a hunk of smoked meat that sat on the table.

Granny looked at Joe and said, "Now I know you ain't never tasted anything like this before. You might even be a little scared to try it. You gotta trust we won't poison you or turn you into a toad. Nothing like that." She winked at Irena.

It only took a minute for the dish to come together. First Granny melted the white stuff—lard—then she put the pokeweed into the skillet. It sizzled.

"Yep, it's hot!" she said.

She took a big cleaver and coarsely chopped the bacon into small pieces and put them in the skillet.

Next, she cracked the six eggs, one by one, into the skillet. She broke the yolks but let the eggs set for a minute or two before stirring everything together. With a tremendous amount of experience, she scooped, turned, and mixed the Poke Salet in the skillet.

Irena laid out three plates on the big table. She also put out Granny's fresh-made cornbread, butter, and a jar of honey. Granny hoisted the big skillet and set it right on the table.

The three of them sat down.

"Oh my, this is the best plate of greens I have ever tasted," Joe said as he scooped himself a second serving.

Irena passed Joe the cornbread. "Told ya."

The man who trusted plastic-wrapped food over roadside weeds took a third helping.

Granny winked at Irena.