Monday, September 9 – Love in the Time of Collards
Collard
greens! Who knew?
Certainly
not Laurence and me. We first met them in Texas – it was 2009 and Laur and I
were on our honeymoon. (It had been delayed 32 years, and that’s a story for
another time.) I cannot remember the name of the town or restaurant, but one
night we went to an All You Can Eat BBQ in a small town.
Being a vegan, you might think that eating at a barbeque place might prove to be problematic. Not so, normally. There is usually a selection of salad veggies, cooked vegetables, baked beans, potatoes, rice, bread, tomato soup, crackers, and so on.
This BBQ was a little different. There was one choice for veggies – and they were cooked and “interesting” looking. I asked the server what they were and she said “Greens!” I said in my nicest Canadian voice possible, “What kind of greens?” Not that I minded; I was just curious. She responded, “They’s just greens!”
Eventually I found out what they were – collard greens. And checking it out on Wikipedia, I learned that they were a staple vegetable of Southern U.S cuisine – often seasoned with “poor-man’s” meat like fat-back and neck bones - and served alongside black-eyed peas and cornmeal.
So I guess it was a source of rural Texan pride that these folks served their BBQ meat by the slab rather than by spoonful, and that the baked potato came trimmed with turkey, pork or beef. Yes, you could get cornbread and baked beans and “greens,” but these were more like garnishes. Thankfully, these were unlimited too, though I did get some funny looks – a mixture of “say what?!” and sympathy.
What I did not know at the time is that collard greens are a super food. They are very easy to grow and are a good source of protein, fiber, calcium and iron, and of other minerals and key vitamins.
What I could also not predict was the variety of ways one could cook them. (At this restaurant, they were simply boiled into mush – no one was going to eat them anyway.) There’s collard salad, collard slaw, collard soup, collard stew, collard wraps, collard rolls, collard lasagna, collard casseroles, collard smoothies, collard brownies … You get my drift, and you can tell I like scrolling through recipe sites. It’s so much easier than cooking.
The best collard greens we ever had were at Astor’s Ethiopian Restaurant in Austin, Texas, in the winter of 2013. See http://www.astersethiopian.com If you check out the menu, you can see there was the option of a meat or vegetarian platter. We opted for the veggie and were brought a plate the size of an extra large pizza pan. On the bottom was something called injera or flat bread. The servings of different kind of vegetables and legumes were put on top of the bread, and, instead of using cutlery, you used additional bread to scoop up and eat the toppings. You could then eat the bottom layer too.
Collard greens in this culture are called Gomen Wat and we enjoyed them so much that we ordered several extra sides of it - we could not get enough of it. We have not been able to replicate it at home.
And I have a sneaking suspicion why. Seasoned, clarified BUTTER is a key component of many Ethiopian dishes. For this vegan, that’s a little like hearing, “Soylent Green is people!”
Ah well, what happened in Texas stays in Texas – until the next time.
Being a vegan, you might think that eating at a barbeque place might prove to be problematic. Not so, normally. There is usually a selection of salad veggies, cooked vegetables, baked beans, potatoes, rice, bread, tomato soup, crackers, and so on.
This BBQ was a little different. There was one choice for veggies – and they were cooked and “interesting” looking. I asked the server what they were and she said “Greens!” I said in my nicest Canadian voice possible, “What kind of greens?” Not that I minded; I was just curious. She responded, “They’s just greens!”
Eventually I found out what they were – collard greens. And checking it out on Wikipedia, I learned that they were a staple vegetable of Southern U.S cuisine – often seasoned with “poor-man’s” meat like fat-back and neck bones - and served alongside black-eyed peas and cornmeal.
So I guess it was a source of rural Texan pride that these folks served their BBQ meat by the slab rather than by spoonful, and that the baked potato came trimmed with turkey, pork or beef. Yes, you could get cornbread and baked beans and “greens,” but these were more like garnishes. Thankfully, these were unlimited too, though I did get some funny looks – a mixture of “say what?!” and sympathy.
What I did not know at the time is that collard greens are a super food. They are very easy to grow and are a good source of protein, fiber, calcium and iron, and of other minerals and key vitamins.
What I could also not predict was the variety of ways one could cook them. (At this restaurant, they were simply boiled into mush – no one was going to eat them anyway.) There’s collard salad, collard slaw, collard soup, collard stew, collard wraps, collard rolls, collard lasagna, collard casseroles, collard smoothies, collard brownies … You get my drift, and you can tell I like scrolling through recipe sites. It’s so much easier than cooking.
The best collard greens we ever had were at Astor’s Ethiopian Restaurant in Austin, Texas, in the winter of 2013. See http://www.astersethiopian.com If you check out the menu, you can see there was the option of a meat or vegetarian platter. We opted for the veggie and were brought a plate the size of an extra large pizza pan. On the bottom was something called injera or flat bread. The servings of different kind of vegetables and legumes were put on top of the bread, and, instead of using cutlery, you used additional bread to scoop up and eat the toppings. You could then eat the bottom layer too.
Collard greens in this culture are called Gomen Wat and we enjoyed them so much that we ordered several extra sides of it - we could not get enough of it. We have not been able to replicate it at home.
And I have a sneaking suspicion why. Seasoned, clarified BUTTER is a key component of many Ethiopian dishes. For this vegan, that’s a little like hearing, “Soylent Green is people!”
Ah well, what happened in Texas stays in Texas – until the next time.