about 6 jerusalem artichokes, cooked and mashed like potatoes

1/2 cup acorn flour

1 cup self rising flour

1/4 cup lard or shortening

1 egg, beaten

1 cup buttermilk

Cook artichokes and mash, you should have about a half a cup when done.  Preheat oven to 400F. Sift the flours together and add lard or shortening. Mix. Add jerusalem artichokes. Mix. Combine egg and milk and then add to other ingredients. Roll out (a little thinner than a regular biscuit) and cut. Bake on ungreased baking sheets for about 10 minutes, until brown.

1/2 cup milk

1 egg, beaten

1 cup acorn flour

salt and pepper to taste

10-12 puffball mushrooms, sliced

butter or olive oil for frying

Mix milk and egg together. Mix flour, salt, pepper together in seperate container. Put butter or olive oil in skillet and turn on medium heat. When butter is hot, dip mushroom in egg mixture, then in flour mixture and place in skillet. Fry until brown, turning once.

1 tablespoon Olive Oil

1 cups ramps, thinly sliced (best if using white part only)

3 cups sliced apples

salt if desired

1 tablespoon honey

(a little water if needed)

Put oil in iron skillet and fry the ramps until tender. Add apples, honey and salt if desired. Cover and steam for about 10-15 minutes. Stir this every once in awhile and add a bit of water if it begind to stick.

This dish is great with any wild game like racoon, possum, boar, deer or bear.

1 tablespoon butter

1/4 cup ramps (wild leeks)

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup acorn flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon flour

1 cup buttermilk

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon hot sauce

Melt butter in small skillet over low heat and cook ramps until wilted. Let them cool. Stir cornmeal, acorn flour, soda, salt, baking powder and flour together. Add buttermilk and leeks and stir well. Stir in egg and hot sauce. Drop by spoonfuls onto a hot griddle with oil and fry until browned on each side.

Here are several recipes for Poke Salad. It is best to get the tender leaves and shoots. Do not cut below the ground as it is poisonous. The mature leaves, berries and roots are the poisonous parts of the plant. It is said that eating three messes of poke salad in the Spring will keep you from getting those late Spring colds. It is also said that you should go out to get your first harvest of Poke Salad when the frogs start croaking in the Spring.

Boil the leaves and shoots in two changes of water if using older leaves. If very young leaves you will be OK to just boil them. If in doubt, do as follows: Poke Salad is poison if not cooked correctly. Let boil a few minutes, drain the water off and boil again. After a few minutes, drain and add more water. After adding water the third time, cook until tender. Drain well and squeeze out the juice with a fork. Now try one of the following recipes:

*Place poke salad hot in a bowl and top with boiled eggs.

*Add some olive oil to a pan and saute’ poke salad with leeks or onions.

*Add oil to a pan and put the poke salad in, when good and hot, break an egg into the pan and stir with a fork. Continue to fry until the egg is done.

*Cut the whole plant when it is about 8 inches high. Cut this up like okra and parboil once if desired. Roll in flour or cornmeal, salt and pepper and fry.

This is often eaten with some fried streak meat.

(this is sometimes spelled Polk Salad)

If you find that your wild game was a little old (meaning age) the meat will sometimes be tough. You can take the meat and boil it first. Cut it into pieces and then fry it as you would chicken. This will sometimes make the meat a little more tender.

Boil a squirrel like you would do chicken for dumplins. Make sure it is cooked thoroughly. Add salt and pepper to taste as squirrel is cooking.

While this is cooking, make some biscuit dough. (2 cups self rising flour, 1/3 cup lard or shortening and 1 cup buttermilk) Get a small amount of dough with fingers and roll in your palms, drop this in the boiling water. I like to thicken this up by adding some of the boiling water to the last bit of the dough mixture. I then add this to the pot of dumplins.

You can add a small piece of hamhock to the squirrel while it is boiling and it gives it a good flavor. Remove this before you add the dumplins.

Use 8 cups of Sassafras Tea (*how to make Sassafras Tea)

Mix one package of sure-jell with 8 cups of tea and bring to a hard boil, stirring occasionally. Add 8 cups of sugar and bring back to a full boil. Boil this for one minute, stirring constantly. Skim off the foam and pour into jars. You can seal this with Paraffin wax or in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.

To make one gallon of tea:

Get about 4-5 average size roots, preferrably young roots, wash in cold water, peal and cut into pieces. Boil in one gallon of water for about 20 minutes. Strain, sweeten with sugar or honey and serve hot or cold.

1 cup sorrel leaves and stems (finely chopped)

2 cups water, veggie broth OR chicken broth

3 quail eggs (or two chicken egg yolks)

1 tablespoon Sassafras Powder (*how to make Sassafras Powder)

1 tablespoon Muscadine Wine (or 1/2 cup of freshly chopped muscadines)

Bring liquid to a boil and add sorrel. Simmer for 10 minutes. Mix eggs, muscadine and sassafras powder and add 2 tablespoons of hot soup. Add this mixture to the soup, stirring constantly to prevent lumps and sticking. Cook on low until desired consistency.

This is good serves hot or cold. You can add a few chipped muscadines to top of soup before eating or freshly chopped sorrel.