Collards

Collards
 
A strange title, you say.  Well, maybe so, but if you happened to grow up in the South, you know collard greens are a staple. 
 
When I was a child, my father grew some as big a washtubs.  He tended them with the care of a father tending his child.  He watered them, kept out the grass, shook some type of white dust on them to keep the worms away, and thought every family should eat collards at least once a week.
 
I used to wonder if Dad was unknowingly poisoning us all with that white dust.  He would put a bucket full in a burlap sack and walk down each row shaking the substance on every leaf.  We had to wait until it rained on the collards before we could eat them.  And then, Mom would wash them in multiple water baths. 
 
Collards are sweeter after the first frost hits them.  That’s when my dad liked them the best.  And boy, could they stink up a house. 
 
I learned a few of life’s lessons because of my encounter with collards. 
 
Life lesson number 1:  If you put something on your plate, you must eat it.  I made the mistake one night of putting a bit too many collard greens on my plate.  (Mind you, an appropriate amount was less than a teaspoon.) My brother, who was probably a young teenager by then, had pity on me.  After everyone else had left the table and I was staring down in tears at the green glob of food, he showed me how to get them down without gagging.  He instructed me to divide the collards into very small portions at different intervals around the plate.  He would begin counting very slowly.  I was to spoon one small portion of collards and drink a large swig of tea at the same time.  After he had counted to seven, I had gulped down the whole lot.  I remember that day being impressed by such a smart brother.  That is my second remembrance of loving him like a brother.
 
What was my first, you ask?  Well, I distinctly remember walking to school with him near the beginning of my first-grade year.  On the way, he told me that if anyone picked on me at school, to tell him and he would take care of it.  What little sister can’t love a ten-year-old bodyguard of a brother?
 
Life lesson number 2:  If you find something gross in your food, discard it and eat the food anyway.  Those pesky worms that love collards so much once found their way into our collard bowl and my plate.  My mother always prided herself on her cleanliness and pristine methods of food preparation, but occasionally one of those pesky creatures would elude her.  I remember distinctly where I was sitting at the table and how surprised (grossed out) I was at seeing the dead remains of a worm in my small blob of collards.  I immediately exclaimed its presence. and my mom, without missing a beat, said, “No, that’s not a worm.  It just looks like a worm.”  Well, I knew it was a worm, and I think Mom knew it was a worm; but to admit such would have ruined everyone’s meal.  I guess there is a secondary lesson here as well:  If you tell yourself it is not what it is, maybe you (and others) will believe it.  At any rate, she took one look, discarded the evidence, and we all proceeded to eat our meal.  I am sure I used my brother’s method of collard disposal that night, as well.
 
Life lesson number 3:  Collards are to be cooked with fat back (lots of fat back) and eaten with hot green peppers.  There were many things that grossed me out as a child, but one vivid image I have is my father eating collards and then chasing them with bites of fat back and pods of hot green pepper.  He would grow those hot green peppers in his garden.  I had to be very careful in clearing the table, because if I happened to get some of the remaining pepper or seeds on my hands and then touch my eyes, I would be hurting for quite a while.  At our house, collards were cooked in a large pot.  There was always room for one more complementary item:  the corn meal dumpling.  And sometimes, Mom would pour off the remaining liquid in the pot and save it for who knows what.  I just remember she called it pot liquor—a funny name to me as a child because of my strict upbringing decrying the sale or use of any type of alcoholic beverage.  I guess if you let it sit around long enough, it would have fermented.
 
Life lesson number 4:  Collards are worthy of being passed to future generations.  In my freezer right now is a Mason jar filled with collard seeds.  When my parents died in the year 2000, I found the jar of seeds in their freezer.  Inside was a note in my father’s handwriting stating that these seed came from his mother.  In addition to a few pieces of furniture, I can now claim to own something that once belonged to my grandmother.  These collard seeds connect me with this woman who was born in the late 19^th century.  I have a living (though dormant) connection to her and her life.  Pretty neat!  My dad’s brother found out I had them, and he begged a few to plant in his garden at the retirement center.  I poured a portion into an envelope and mailed them to him.  They germinated and grew.  Pretty neat, as well!
 
Life lesson number 5:  Our taste buds change as we grow older.  It was my senior year of college.  Cafeteria food had lost its mystique.  I was walking across campus one afternoon, looking toward the east (toward home), and I remember thinking to myself, “I would give anything for a good mess of collards.”  Go figure.  Life is funny.
 
There are many terms to denote the amount of collards, or any vegetable for that matter.  As a child, I learned instinctively that a mess of anything was a sufficient amount to feed a family of at least four people.  My parents were always giving away their bounty from the family garden (a.k.a. truck farm).  I would observe my parents making sure these friends had a “good mess” of whatever they were giving away.
 
Another term, which always made me snicker (and still does today), was my mom’s use of the word “crap.”  She used it as a verb, mind you, not as an interjection.  In her vernacular, “crapping” collards meant you broke off individual leaves rather than cut the entire stalk.  I imagine the term came about as a type of onomatopoeia—the sound the leaves make when you break them from the stalk.  I can still hear her saying to my dad, “Earl, I’m going to go crap some collards for the preacher.”  You have to love the South!