Collard  

Collard – almost always referred to as “collards” or “collard greens” — has one of the most interesting stories to be found in a farm field or a farmers market.

Collards are known as a Southern vegetable, and often as an African-American favorite, because it was a staple for the enslaved people who labored on the plantations across what became the Confederacy. They grew it in their own gardens to supplement the unhealthy and limited rations their owners provided them.

Scholars have a number of theories about how collards came to the South, because they’re not native to the United States. They’re Eurasian in origin, and ancient Romans and Greeks feasted on them thousands of years ago. In fact, the name "collard" comes from the word “colewort”, a medieval term for non-heading greens like kale.

As collards spread throughout the Mediterranean and into northern and western Europe, it’s believed they also branched into Africa.

European settlers may have brought collard seeds to America from Portugal in the 18th century, or from the British Isles to the early Eastern seaboard colonies. But the most prevalent theory is that enslaved Africans brought them since they had become a staple crop in many parts of Africa.

They’re grown today in Zambia,  Zimbabwe, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya, as well as the Balkans, northern Spain, Portugal, Kashmir and Brazil.

Historian John Egerton, in his 1987 book Southern Food, wrote that the African slaves brought several foods to the American South -- okra, black-eyed peas and yams, for example – so they may well have brought collard greens, too.

Collards remain today an important symbol of African American cultural resilience and a key ingredient in Southern cooking. Traditionally, a “mess” of collards is cooked with fatback or ham hock and often combined with other greens like mustard. Oftentimes it is the green in Hoppin’ John, a delicious Southern delicacy with greens, rice, and black-eyed peas, traditionally served on New Year’s Day for good luck.

Jazz composer and pianist Thelonious Monk sported a collard leaf in his lapel to represent his African-American heritage. Collard greens were included on the menu in President Barack Obama's first state dinner. Many community collard festivals celebrating African-American identity have been established, including those in Port Wentworth, Georgia (since 1997), East Palo Alto, California (since 1998), Columbus, Ohio (since 2010), and Atlanta, Georgia (since 2011). In 2010, the Latibah Collard Greens Museum opened in Charlotte, North Carolina.[28]

Many travelers and observers in the late nineteenth century wrote about the pervasiveness of collards in Southern cooking, particularly among African-Americans. In 1869, a traveler during the Civil War, for example, wrote that collards could be found anywhere in the South. In 1872, another observer, echoed that report, claiming that collards were present in every black Southerner's garden. In 1883, a writer commented on the fact that there is no word or dish more popular among poorer blacks – and whites -- than collard greens.

 The collard sandwich—consisting of fried cornbread, collard greens, and fatback—is a popular dish today among the Lumbee people in Robeson County, North Carolina.

Collards have gained widespread popularity among whites as well as African-Americans because of their wealth of nutritional goodness, including notable amounts of vitamins K and C, folate, and beta-carotene.