A Close Encounter of the Collard Kind

By: Angela Gillaspie Copyright © May 2003

Recently, I was re-shopping - you know, making a second trip to the grocery store to buy stuff (like fruit, vegetables, and feminine hygiene products) that my husband Paul forgot - and I stopped in the produce section. I loaded up a mess of green beans and tossed a bag of carrots in my cart, and looked around for another vegetable. Scanning the lettuce, squash, and okra, my eyes stopped on the collard greens.

Collards? I crinkled my nose because collards are in the 'Slimy Greens' category and remind me of a dish that my parents often made when I was young. In the springtime, we'd head out to the cow pasture and pick great big grocery sacks full of poke salet leaves (or poke salad if you're an uppity redneck). Momma and Granny would wash, boil, rinse, boil, rinse, then fry poke salet until it cried for mercy. Everyone (but me) loved eating the slimy greens with a dash of pepper sauce. I thought it tasted similar to greasy over-cooked grass.

As an adult, I never really thought about cooking greens for my family because I figured the kids would assume the same thing I did, all greens - turnip greens, spinach, mustard greens, poke salet, or collards - are yucky. Except one day, a friend commented that he couldn't believe that a southern person like me didn't eat collards. When I mentioned that I wasn't into eating pond scum, he said, "Just try 'em; they taste like cooked cabbage!"

Hmm, I love cooked cabbage. So that day at the store, I attributed my youthful encounters with collards as an immature palate, and grabbed a huge (it took two hands to carry it) bunch of collards and figured what-the-heck. Anything cooked for hours with pork fat had to be good.

When I got home, I surfed the Internet to make sure that my cabbage recipe (chopped cabbage + water + smoked salt pork + garlic + salt + simmering for an hour or so = yummy) would work for the collards - Lord knows that I didn't want to offend any ad hoc Collard Etiquette Committee.

With a sharp knife, I cut the rubber band and dunked the collards in a sink full of cool water. Peeling back a leaf, I was amazed at the size - you could diaper a four-month-old with one of these! The Internet recipes advised, '... remove tough stems and ribs ...' They weren't kidding; I considered keeping some of the tough stems and ribs to use for dental floss or baling twine.

I washed, de-stemmed, de-ribbed, and chopped for a good half-hour and was rewarded with a pot piled over two feet high with collards. I rendered down my salt pork, added water, garlic, and salt, and cranked the heat. In a few minutes, my kitchen filled with a smell that resembled a mix between wet dog, freshly cut grass, and cabbage.

Urk.

Trying to ignore the stench, I continued preparing the night's supper of pintos, potatoes, and carrots. I was convinced the smell would go away after a while. Soon, the baby woke up, waddled over to the kitchen doorway, pointed to the stove, and asked, "Poo poo?"

Surely I misunderstood him - gosh, he's only 19 months old! Yeah, he probably said "Goo goo," or something.

Well, it wasn't long before my other three kids got home from school, and they shared their constructive culinary criticisms:

You can imagine their excitement when I told them what they smelled was something NEW we were trying for supper. "Try to keep an open mind, y'all," I said, "Who knows? Even though this smells like grass clippings sautéed with dirty socks, it might taste good!"

Before long, we gathered at the table for the blessing, "Dear Lord, please bless this food and allow it to nourish and not sicken our bodies. Amen."

"Amen!"

Paul immediately dug into the steaming pile of collards, piling a nice-sized heap on his and the baby's plates. I had to force the older kids (and myself) to try a microscopic portion.

"Mmm, goo!" the baby said as he grinned around a mouthful of greens.

Paul nodded, "Yeah honey, these are good," as he sprinkled pepper juice over his collards. The rest of us took a deep breath and, on the count of three, took a small bite. I didn't gag, and thought they actually tasted "OK." My oldest son held his nose as he chased a mouthful of collards with his drink, and my middle son gave them a thumb's up. My daughter shrugged and said, "They taste bland - they need something."

Bland? Now that I had a close encounter of the collard kind, I can truthfully say that I'd go for less sod and more salt pork. I'll try turnip greens next time - to avoid them would be collard crime (according to Paul). When I re-shop that week, you can bet that I'll be sure to get me extra pork fat and two extra-large cans of room deodorizer.

Stay tuned for more SouthernAngel's green funnies!