Greens are a large category of vegetable that elicits passionate response when it comes to type and cooking method. What I may consider a green would be dismissed as “lettuce” in some parts of the county and certainly as less the farther south you go.
This part of the country has a long and storied history with greens not only as a food source but literally as a demarcation point for class and cultures. The truth is that greens, spinach, chard, lettuce etc., have been everyone’s staple at one time or another; a renewable resource that fills the belly and supplies some important nutrients.
As in most cases the higher and quicker you climb the social ladder, the less you get to indulge in the heritage foods, the foods that sustained us. During the German occupation of Greece during World War II, the Greeks famously kept themselves alive by harvesting wild greens from the mountains and plains, sometimes in open defiance of the occupying force.
This was not the first time that greens had supplied the base of someone’s diet as we can look to our early ancestors in this country and the first European arrivals as well. A new class of greens and indeed new ways to prepare them came with the first slaves brought to America. Cheaply grown in abundance these greens flourished in the South and created an entire class of vegetable that remains to this day truly regional.
Ask a New Yorker about collards and he will offer a blank stare. A restaurant patron from California, newly arrived to Charleston will ask for greens and may expect mesclun mix, instead getting the long, slow cooked greens of the low country.
Greens in Kentucky have no real season and tend to flourish throughout the year. That’s not to say that you should buy without a nod to the seasons or more specifically the weather. Some greens are better after the first frost of the fall, spinach is wonderful in the cool wet spring, not some much after several cutting on the same plant.
In general, the older the plant, the more powerful (some might say bitter) the flavor will be. Texture is also affected by age as the leaves continue to develop veins of transpiration and the stems become large and tough. While greens may be renewable, for a variety of reasons, they are not inexhaustible.
Most cookbooks will separate greens into cooking and salad. For the purpose of this article I’m focused mostly on cooking greens which also have a small window of salad green capability.
Baby kale for the trendy kale salad is really the only kale that will work properly in a salad. Not fully grown it has a nice chew and pleasant astringency which develops into the full blown brashness of adult kale. I feature roasted vegetables, tart fruits and a creamy element in most of my kale salads.
While it’s natural to match this type of salad with bacon and mustard, it takes some of the subtlety away from the greens themselves. Let them be the base and then garnish around them. We use a baby greens mix from Erik’s Organics at The Sage Rabbit. Multiple greens still in the tender stage are tossed together; kale, tatsoi, beet and others create a multi-use product.
We sauté, roast, braise and wilt these greens. They are at once a base, a garnish and a main component of our noodle bowl, pork paprikash and Chef’s Garden.
Moving onto the older greens you want to look for fresh stems, cleanly outlined leaves, and crisp colors. I have never heard anyone describe collard greens as stunning, they are mostly monochromatic and look like a shock of unkempt hair. A visit to the local farmer’s market will disabuse you of that notion as a truly fresh bunch of collard greens glistens and undulates just as well as a bouquet of flowers.
It is a shame that the most prevalent cooking methods for these greens is to braise them. We not only lose nutrition, but they become deep and rich in flavor while losing their singular identity as the crisp new green they once were. The fact is that a lot of cooking greens require stewing, braising or even boiling to satisfy the palate’s need for tenderness and mellow flavors.
As a food source, cooking greens provide us with abundant sources of beta carotene, calcium and iron. In some cuisines that are not or cannot be dependent on animal proteins, these greens substitute very nicely and have done so for millennia. Probably one of our first domesticated crops, along with grains we have learned to maximize the availability around the apparent disinterest that still exists for greens in this country.
A kale chip will give you no real value, roasted kale can give you value, nutrition and another choice at the table.
Roasted Greens
We do a variety of our baby greens and vary the method only as far as the fat we use to pre-dress them. If it’s a vegetarian dish I’ll dress the greens with a truffle or herb olive oil, salt and pepper. If the dish is for an entrée I may use clarified butter.
Lacinato Kale
A wonderful variety that creates a nutty aroma when roasted and kicks up the plate presentation 100 percent. Similar to kale but with more texture (dinosaur skin) and a deep grey green color it holds shape and color very well.
Swiss chard, one of my very favorite as a gateway green. Non-threatening and colorful it is adaptable to a warm wilted salad or as an addition to a fresh pasta, standing in admirably for spinach.
Spinach; New Zealand Spinach
A variety we get locally that has critics and admirers alike, tiny leaves that stand up well to any cooking, especially good, dressed with olive oil and grilled. The leaves are attached to some serous stems which when young add a delightful crunch. Some people are put off by the chew of the stems, so we trim this spinach and reserve the stems for stocks and broths.
John Foster is an executive chef who heads the culinary program at Sullivan University’s Lexington campus. A New York native, Foster has been active in the Lexington culinary scene and a promoter of local and seasonal foods for more than 20 years. The French Culinary Institute-trained chef has been the executive chef of his former restaurant, Harvest, and now his Chevy Chase eatery, The Sage Rabbit, in Lexington.