One of the joys of a Southern kitchen is the cleaning, prepping and cooking of that obligatory mess of collard greens on New Year’s Day. And while it may sound like more of a chore than a pleasure, it can be a ritual that’s almost as satisfying as eating them. A meditative experience, one might say.
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Yes, you can buy greens that have already been washed, cut and bagged, but then you have no way of judging if they’re good greens — and all too often they aren’t. How many times have you opened a bag of greens, only to find that many of them, unseen when they are bagged, are dark and mushy with tough stems included once you free them from their packaging. Most likely, it’s because they’ve been cut by machine rather than by hand, and that reduces their shelf life and pretty much ruins them.
If you missed out on the ritual of cleaning and tearing your greens, or succumbed to the convenience of those bagged greens and spent half your time at the table picking woody bits of stem out of your dinner, you may not fully appreciate the experience of visiting a farmers market and buying them fresh from the farm.
If you take a little time, you’ll realize that it wasn’t just because they were one of the few green vegetables available during the winter that made collards a staple on Southern tables throughout the season. However, there’s no better time to experience them than when the new year opens. Tradition tells us that eating greens will help ensure a healthy financial situation in the year ahead.