poke salad

Definition

A food made from boiled pokeweed leaves, which are poisonous unless cooked properly.

Etymology

poke (“pokeweed”) + salad or sallet. “Poke salad” and “poke sallet” mean the same thing—carefully boiled pokeweed. Uncooked pokeweed is poisonous. Given that “salad” connotes “raw,” many speakers favor the original “sallet” which connotes “cooked greens.”

Example Sentences

• "The Harvard man went back into the kitchen and sat down at a rickety table covered with a red-checked oil-cloth. On it were spread the spoiled ham, a dish of poke salad, a corn pone, and a pot of weak coffee."
• "Whereas to most people, “salad” is made with raw greens, “poke salad” shoots and greens must be cooked, the cooking water changed and discarded several times. […] There are many documented deaths from eating improperly prepared “poke salad.”"
• "Despite the fact that the kudzu-like Phytolacca americana sprouts up all across North America, poke sallet, a dish made from the plant’s slightly-less-toxic leaves, is a regional thing, popular only to Appalachia and the American South."