Collard Greens and Pot Likker

Collard greens braised with smoked pork until silky-soft, in a broth so rich it has its own name — pot likker (or pot liquor) — is the African American green tradition at its most fundamental. Collards (*Brassica oleracea* var. *viridis*) are an Old World green brought to the Americas by European colonists, but the technique of braising tough greens for hours with smoked meat in a covered pot is West African, connected to the same one-pot stewing tradition that produced gumbo, callaloo, and every covered-pot braise in the diaspora. Enslaved Africans in the American South took the greens available to them — collards, turnip greens, mustard greens, kale — and cooked them the way their ancestors cooked leafy greens in West Africa: slowly, with whatever flavouring meat was available, until the greens were transformed and the cooking liquid was a food in itself.

Collard greens stripped from their thick central stems, washed thoroughly (collards grow low and trap grit), stacked, rolled, and sliced into ribbons, then braised with a smoked ham hock (or smoked turkey leg, or bacon) in water or stock for 1-3 hours until the greens are silky-soft, deeply flavoured with smoke and pork, and the cooking liquid — the pot likker — is dark, rich, smoky, and substantial enough to be drunk from a cup or sopped with cornbread. The greens should be tender enough to cut with a fork, seasoned throughout with the smoked meat, and the pot likker should taste like concentrated essence of the entire pot.

Collard greens are served alongside fried chicken, cornbread, mac and cheese, sweet potatoes, black-eyed peas — the full soul food plate. The greens and their pot likker provide the savoury, smoky, slightly bitter counterweight to the richness of fried food and the sweetness of sweet potatoes. Hot sauce and vinegar on the table.