Collard Time
Collards. A leafy green veggie that would fall somewhere between a head of cabbage and kale. Legend has it that they are at their peak just after the first frost, although in this zone can be grown all year. Also, you don't pick collards, you crop them. I can't know so don't ask!
The small town that I grew up in has a yearly festival to honor this vegetable. It is appropriately called the Ayden Collard Festival. The natives take great civic pride putting on a week long array of festivities. It is going on as I write, so hurry on down ya'll!
Many small towns across the South have these festivals. It brings people together, provides entertainment, and all in all is a very good thing. My Mother (RIP) forbid us as children to attend, as she thought this was the silliest thing she had ever heard of. Admittedly, I was already driving by the time this festival started and had no interest in seeing the Collard Queen, a collard eating contest, or dancing in the streets to a live country band. I was at the mall (that was the newest thing back then)!
In our home growing up, collards were hardly ever cooked. You see, when you "boil a pot of greens" it tends to draw flies and will "smell up the house" for many days. If we ate collards it was always at my Grandmother Taylor's home....Mammy. My Grandmother Stocks could ruin a boiled egg. Maybe this is why my Mother was never considered a great Southern cook, although she could prepare great chicken salad!
Occasionally the housekeeper (Pip) would cook them at her home and bring them for a holiday meal. Yes, where I am from collards are a holiday tradition. Now that I do the annual Thanksgiving meal at my home, I have located a corner deli that makes collards (I buy them frozen) and will sell them by the quart. Typically 2 quarts will get me through New Years Day...along with blackeyed peas and some form of a pork product...another tradition!
Welcome to the South ya'll!
As always...xx.DT
The small town that I grew up in has a yearly festival to honor this vegetable. It is appropriately called the Ayden Collard Festival. The natives take great civic pride putting on a week long array of festivities. It is going on as I write, so hurry on down ya'll!
Many small towns across the South have these festivals. It brings people together, provides entertainment, and all in all is a very good thing. My Mother (RIP) forbid us as children to attend, as she thought this was the silliest thing she had ever heard of. Admittedly, I was already driving by the time this festival started and had no interest in seeing the Collard Queen, a collard eating contest, or dancing in the streets to a live country band. I was at the mall (that was the newest thing back then)!
In our home growing up, collards were hardly ever cooked. You see, when you "boil a pot of greens" it tends to draw flies and will "smell up the house" for many days. If we ate collards it was always at my Grandmother Taylor's home....Mammy. My Grandmother Stocks could ruin a boiled egg. Maybe this is why my Mother was never considered a great Southern cook, although she could prepare great chicken salad!
Occasionally the housekeeper (Pip) would cook them at her home and bring them for a holiday meal. Yes, where I am from collards are a holiday tradition. Now that I do the annual Thanksgiving meal at my home, I have located a corner deli that makes collards (I buy them frozen) and will sell them by the quart. Typically 2 quarts will get me through New Years Day...along with blackeyed peas and some form of a pork product...another tradition!
Welcome to the South ya'll!
As always...xx.DT
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