Quote:
Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8
There were a lot of poor whites, too, in the Deep South. And they ate whatever they could get. I'm sure that pork brains was one of those things, at times.
I have no idea how pork brains became a delicacy to some Southerners (I assume that my grandmother wasn't the only one who ate them. In fact, at one time, at least, grocery stores where she lived would sell canned pork brains. That's within my lifetime), though. If it wasn't because of what I mentioned in the first paragraph, then perhaps it came from the slaves. I dunno. Perhaps both are true.
Poke Salat (often erroneously called and written "Polk Salad") is a leafy plant that grows wild in the South. Poor people who could not afford collard greens, mustard greens, or turnip greens would go outside to forage for it when they wanted greens and, I suppose, when there was nothing else to eat, too. Nowadays, some native Southerners will go "get a mess of 'em" even if they afford other greens. It's a delicacy to them.
By the way, there is a song called "Poke Salad Annie," about Southerners eating Poke Salat. Elvis Presley used to sing it. When he was in a live concert and about to sing it, he would explain to some audiences what Poke Salad was. He would have been very familiar with it, having grown up very poor in northeastern Mississippi (Tupelo).
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Yes, I acknowledge your point about poor Southern whites and their diet, and the value of also making those points explicit (though I did qualify my statements to leave room for sources of "soul food" other than "slave food").
As a fan of
The Walking Dead TV series, I was very surprised - and more than a little disappointed in the writers - that in the seasons showing Rick's group and groups of cannibals nearly starving, in Georgia, Virginia, and the regions between them, the characters (many of whom were from the South and from Appalachia) were not shown foraging for any of the many edible, native or
invasive plants that grow in abundance in those very regions, such as (Phytolacca americana), aka pokeweed, from which poke salad (aka poke salat or poke sallet) is made, and about which
numerous artists (e.g., Big Twist and The Mellow Fellows, Tom Jones, Johnny Hallyday, Bill Carlisle, and Joe Dassin) in addition to Elvis (as you pointed out) have sung songs, and in honor of which
multiple southern folk festivals are held.