Pokeweed. Image by Kerry Wixted via Flickr

Vinegar. Poke Salad. Perfume. How Does an Old, Used Bottle Become a Memory?

My husband introduced me to serious greens early in our marriage.

He started lightly. We found an Italian restaurant that served raw spinach in salad.

Then, he introduced me to one of his favorite frugal Bachelor’s meals – canned spinach with corned beef hash and a fried egg.

Then, we moved into a house where poke salad was growing as a weed in our patio.

Poke salad, picked fresh and tender in the spring, is like a lighter version of cooked spinach.

I’d heard the song, “Poke Salad, Annie,” but, I didn’t know what it was.

Although you will often see photos of poke salad with dark red berries  that make it easy to distinguish the plant, by the time berries appear, late in the season, both the leaves and the berries are poisonous.

Click here for a Southerner’s description of how to prepare poke salad.

Click here to watch Elvis on YouTube sing “Poke Salad Annie.”

Note: A “mess” of greens is enough to serve the table.

Click here to read about the Poke Salad Festival in Louisiana.

The Serious Greens

Then, came the serious greens.

You can’t be married to a Georgia boy, born and bred, without being exposed to greens.

Either separately or mixed, these include turnip, collard, and mustard greens.

They are boiled with fat back if you’re authentic, bacon if you’re pretending or don’t have access to fat back.

They are served on New Year’s Day, to ensure abundance through the year, and at least once a week for the rest of the year.

You don’t get much healthier than greens. Remember Popeye?

Click here for an overview of the health benefits of collard greens, in particular, cancer prevention.

Aren’t They Bitter?

They’re not sweet, like corn or carrots.

But, they’re not bitter, just strong.

To soften the taste, Southerners sprinkle hot-pepper vinegar over them.

That is vinegar in which hot peppers have been soaking, indefinitely.

If you’re a true Southerner, you make your own hot-pepper vinegar.

What About the Memory Bottle?

That brings me to a recent meal with greens, as we get ready to celebrate our greens and hog jowl on New Year’s Day.

Tired of the regular bottle of hot-pepper vinegar, I reached into the back of the refrigerator for a tiny, beautiful, cork-topped bottle.

“That’s probably eight years old,” my husband said.

“My sister hasn’t had a garden in at least that long,” he said of the peppers she had grown.

She told me she’d found the bottle at an antiques store and just liked the way it looked

Never being able to manage money, she never had much.

But, she could turn an old, used bottle, which probably once held perfume, into a cherished memory of her garden, her roots, and her love.

And, the vinegar was still good.

In your memory, Laura Jane.

June 11, 1952 – August 20, 2011.

What memories do you have of loved ones, inspired by something they gave you?

Have you lost someone this year?

Have you told your grandchildren stories about your lost loved one?

To you and the memories you make with the gifts you give.

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Carol Covin, “Granny-Guru”

Author, “Who Gets to Name Grandma? The Wisdom of Mothers and Grandmothers”

http://newgrandmas.com

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How Does An Old, Used Bottle Become a Memory?