Date:  Sat, 7 Oct 1995 10:26:59 -0400

From:  "Bethany Dumas, UTK" <DUMASB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UTKVX.UTK.EDU>

Subject: Polk salad and rampy stuff



Someone asked, "what is poke salad?"



Polk is a wild green (kin, I guess, to mustard and collards and stuff) That

is a COOKED "salit." At least one company still cans it commercially, I

think. When I waas interviewing in Newton County, AR, in 1970, people

were gathering it to sell to the cannery.



But who knows about ramps? East Tennessee hosts an annual Ramp Festival,

complete with a Ramp Queen and a band and sometimes the guv. Ramps are

kin to wild onions and they are traditionally the first spring

vegetable to poke up from under the snow or ice. They taste

wonderful, but they have a goddawful smell. The first time I went to the

Ramp Festival, a group of us went on to Gatlinburg from the Festival

and we left raw ramps in the ar in the sunlight. The car stank for days.

Newspapers have carried stories about kids who ate them on the way to

school and were summarily sent back home after they arrived, not

bating their breath.



BTW, collards is the "green" I grew up on, and it remains my favorite --

except when I am having Spinach Maria.



Bethany Dumas

dumasB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]utk.edu