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.
1) Wash the greens three times minimum. Fill a sink with cold water, submerge the greens, agitate, lift out, drain, repeat. Grit in cooked collards is the mark of a careless cook. Hold a leaf to the light after the final wash — if you see any particles, wash again. 2) The smoked pork goes in first — the ham hock simmers in water for 30-60 minutes before the greens are added, giving the collagen time to begin dissolving and the smoke flavour time to infuse the liquid. The greens then braise in this already-flavoured liquid. 3) Low and slow. The greens go in, the lid goes on, and the heat drops to a gentle simmer. Collards that cook for 1 hour are good. Collards that cook for 2 hours are better. Collards that cook for 3 hours, with the ham hock falling off the bone and the pot likker thick with dissolved collagen, are the standard to which all others aspire. 4) Season late — the smoked pork provides salt and smoke; additional salt, black pepper, cayenne, and vinegar (cider vinegar, a splash, in the last 15 minutes) are adjusted at the end. The vinegar brightens the pot likker and cuts the richness of the pork fat. 5) Pot likker is a food, not a by-product. It contains the water-soluble vitamins from the greens, the collagen from the pork, and the concentrated flavour of the entire braise. Drink it from a cup, sop it with cornbread, or cook dried beans in it.
Edna Lewis's collards are braised with a piece of salt pork rather than smoked ham hock — a subtler, less smoky result that lets the greens' own flavour come through more clearly. Both traditions are correct. The mixed greens pot — collards, turnip greens, mustard greens, and kale combined in one pot — produces a more complex, more interesting result than any single green alone. Each green contributes a different flavour and texture to the mix. Vinegar at the table: a cruet of cider vinegar or pepper vinegar (hot peppers steeped in vinegar) alongside the greens allows each person to add their own acid. This is the Southern standard. Cornbread and pot likker is a meal. A wedge of hot cast-iron cornbread (LA3-12), a bowl of pot likker with greens, and nothing else. This is what people ate when there was nothing else, and it is still one of the most satisfying meals in American cooking.
Not washing enough — grit is unforgivable. Cooking too briefly — quick-cooked collards (20-30 minutes) are a different dish. They're fine, but they're not the slow-braised Southern tradition. The long cook transforms the greens from tough and bitter to silky and sweet. Discarding the pot likker — this is throwing away half the dish. Over-salting — the smoked pork provides significant salt. Taste before adding any.
Edna Lewis — The Taste of Country Cooking; Jessica B. Harris — The Welcome Table; Michael Twitty — The Cooking Gene; Adrian Miller — Soul Food