The Ultimate Fancy Dinner: Weeds : Party food: Tender stalks of poke sallet are the secret ingredient in a dish nicknamed Joy and Surprise.

When the world’s premier authorities on Italian food and wine, Marcella and Victor Hazan, accepted my invitation for a dinner party in their honor, my first thought was how to add joy and surprise to my menu.

I felt the Hazans, partners in a new restaurant, Veni-Vidi-Vici, not far from my home in Atlanta, would soon figure out what I already knew--that there isn’t much difference between grits and polenta, so definitely grits would be on the menu. But I wanted something to put the meal over the edge--something to cinch it as ever-memorable.

The words joy and surprise kept haunting me. Perhaps because the first dish I ever ate from a Marcella Hazan cookbook was a recipe nicknamed “Joy and Surprise.” It was prepared for me 10 years ago by two of my cooking students. I’ve long forgotten Marcella’s formal name for the dish, but it was a package of homemade pasta that, when cut open, to one’s joy and surprise, was filled with fettuccine and a wonderful sauce. What I wanted was a dish that would have that effect on the Hazans.

The morning of my dinner party I was still short that special idea and even shorter of time. I ran by to see a friend who had been out of town for a week. Eager as I was to see him, I was even more delighted to see the first stalks of young poke sallet springing up in the middle of the flowers in his front yard.

I picked a bunch of the poke sallet and pushed his doorbell. He answered, holding a phone to his ear as he talked to a friend long distance, so I strode purposefully past him to the kitchen door and out to the back yard where, to my great delight, a plethora of weeds greeted me. Out I went, pulling weeds selectively, as he continued to wind down his conversation--as much from curiosity about my zealous weeding as his desire to say hello after a separation.

“What on earth are you weeding now for?” he asked, looking at my silk blouse and white slacks.

“It’s not really weeding,” I said. “I’m picking poke sallet.”

“What?” he said.

“Poke sallet,” I said again, diffidently. The light dawned. “You’ve never had poke sallet!” I exclaimed, stunned.

“Well, I can’t say never,” he said. “I’ve pulled up that weed before, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No,” I said. “I meant you’ve never eaten poke sallet.”

“Eaten that weed?” he asked, puzzled.

“Right,” I replied, remembering once again, that although people from Tampa speak with a Southern drawl and think they are Southern, not all of their credentials are in order.

“Why?” he asked in his best Southern drawl, “would I eat that weed? And why is that weed more important than greeting me hello?”

The answer was that that weed was my joy and surprise. Poke sallet, also called pokeweed, is not commercially marketed--or even planted. It grows abundantly in the yards and fields of the South in the spring, its wild and tender taste the most flavorful of the Southern greens. The word poke is attributed to the Algonquin Indian term puccoon. A poke is also a sack that country people used to gather greens, cotton and other field necessities. Sallet is an old English term, and to us it means a “mess of greens.”

And, certainly, that is what I had gathered in my friend’s yard. I served the poke sallet with the grits in a recipe called Grits and Greens that I’d previously cooked with spinach or turnip greens. The blanched tender young leaves were mixed with grits that were cooked in milk and whipping cream, loaded with Parmesan cheese and garnished with the tender asparagus-like stalk of the weed.

I did tell my guests that some people think poke sallet is poisonous because the berries and roots are highly toxic, but the tender leaves and young stalk are not. But by then, as most of them were raving about their first poke sallet and rapturing over the grits, nothing mattered but their joy and surprise.

GRITS AND GREENS

1 pound greens (poke sallet leaves, turnip greens or spinach leaves)

3 cups milk

1 cup whipping cream

1 cup quick-cooking grits

6 tablespoons butter

1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan cheese

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Optional garnish: poke stems size of young asparagus, blanched in boiling water 3 to 5 minutes, until tender-crisp.

Wash greens and remove stems. In large skillet, place greens with water on them from their washing. Cover and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Add water if necessary to facilitate cooking. Drain and refresh in cold water. Drain again thoroughly, squeezing to remove all water.

Pour milk and whipping cream in saucepan (preferably nonstick) over medium-low heat. Heat nearly to boil. Stir in grits. Cook according to package directions (milk and cream have been substituted for water), stirring as necessary to prevent scorching. Remove from heat and add 2 tablespoons butter.

Add remaining 4 tablespoons butter to skillet. Add drained greens and saute briefly. Combine with grit mixture along with Parmesan cheese. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish with poke stems. Dish may be made ahead and reheated over low heat or in microwave. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Note: Frozen defrosted greens may be substituted for 1 pound of fresh greens.