A Mess of Greens

Only a Southerner knows how many collard greens, turnip greens, peas and beans make up a mess.

The first frost will sweeten them up, but the more frost greens get on them, the better they are.

I will have to confess I never thought much about the lives of plants until I talked to a farmer from Canada. He told me that his maple trees produce their syrup as a defense mechanism against Canada’s frigid winters. “ Even carrots taste sweeter in cold weather once they produce enough sugar to protect their roots in the winter,” he said.

Any serious eater of greens knows that our Southern collards, mustards, and turnips are sweeter after the first frost. Kale, cabbage, broccoli, and spinach have a mind of their own. As temperatures cool, the plants begin to break down their starches into simple sugars. It’s like they produce their own antifreeze in order to survive the cold. The sugar lowers the water’s freezing point.

Photography by Andrew Celbulka of Charleston

Now if I could invite y’all over to my house, you can bring the barbecue and I’ll cook the greens. Collard greens make the perfect side dish for barbecue perhaps because the preparation fits into the pace of low and slow barbecue. I simply put the pot of greens on the stove and let it simmer unattended for hours. They improve with a little aging and reheating. No need to ship them in if you live in the South. They grow abundantly all around the Lowcountry and beyond, in backyard gardens, and on our local farms nearly everywhere.