Food

Food Information

Vegetables

Leafy Greens

COLLARDS

Collards are also known as collard greens. They look like large, flat green cabbage leaves and taste almost exactly like green cabbage but with a slightly smoother texture.

Collards are primarily grown and sold in the rural areas of the southern states and in the large industrial cities of the Midwest and Northeast, where there are large groups of people who have migrated from the South.

The traditional Southern recipe for using collards is to cook them along with smoked ham hocks or salt pork, a dish that is traditionally referred to as "A Mess of Greens." This may explain why the collards seldom appear on restaurant menus up North.

Collards keep well for about a week or so if stored in a refrigerator, but it is advisable to buy them as you need them to ensure top flavor and nutritional value. Select young, green, velvety-feeling, crisp leaves. Avoid those that have started to discolor (by turning yellow), look limp and wilted, or show traces of insect damage (holes in the leaves). Collards are available twelve months of the year but, like most other members of the cabbage family, are at their flavor best when they have been exposed to cool weather.

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