Potlikker (Pot Liquor)

Ingredients

• Turnip greens
• Water
• One pound sliced side meat

Directions

First you get some turnip greens. You have to wash turnip greens many times…turnip greens contain more manganese than do mustard greens….you take the greens and the turnips and you put them in the pot. Remember this: Do not salt them. Do not put any salt, do not put any pepper, do not put any mustard, do not put any kind of seasoning in the pot with them….put in a sizable quantity of water….put in there a piece of salted side meat…you ought to put about a 1 pound hunk of side meat that is sliced, but not clear through, just down to the skin part….it will properly temper the turnip greens when it has been cooked through. That is all the seasoning that is needed. When you have cooked the greens until they are tender and the turnips until they are tender, you take up the turnips and the greens, and the soup that is left is potlikker. That brings on the real question of the art of eating potlikker….You draw off the potlikker and you eat it separately from the turnip greens.

Source — Senator Huey Long
Congressional Record, June 12, 1935
Prepared by Bruce R. Magee
Louisiana Anthology
July 18, 2020