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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >Anyone eat the greens? My shrub is huge, about ten feet in diameter with 
> bushels of fruit. I also found they were used as ink and our consitution 
> was written with it. Anyone have a recipe?
> 

The greens around here are a staple.  They are available from early spring 
until the frost nips them, which isn't yet this year.

As Bev pointed out, you can eat the young leaves and stalks.  The best 
indication is to avoid red, if they are red (leaves or stalk) or any part 
red, they 
are not edible as is.  You can still eat them if you parboil them and discard 
the water.  Around here, though, poke is so common that very young leaves and 
shoots are always available so why bother to blanche the older ones.

The berries aren't poisonous in that you will keel over dead if you eat them, 
but they would make you sick as a dog.  Even birds don't eat them with 
impunity.  They get high as a kite and fly into things when they've been 
eating them.

The roots are very toxic, you could get a fatal dose of root, although you 
would have a hard time eating it as it is very woody.

Poke bears a botanical oddity, Pokeweed Antiviral Protein which occurs mainly 
in the leaves (the part mostly eaten).  It has shown promise as an effective 
antiviral in humans even in addressing HIV.

-------------------

Pokeberry ink requires only two things after squashing and filtering the 
juice:  1) a thickener and 2) a mordant.  Salt works fine as a mordant and 
also 
preserves the ink.  Anything from starch to carrageenan gum, xanthan gum or 
such 
can be used as a thickener.  Just a very tiny bit to keep it from feathering 
on the paper.


James