My Kitchen In Harlem: No Collard Greens at 125th

I was in the local grocery shop on Sunday getting a couple of things for breakfast when I passed two more mature aged African American women, dressed up, wearing hats, having been to church and chatting about okra.

The thinner older one started:
"Oh, I always ate my okra, I remember Mrs Wilsons from Sunday school, she used to say way back when, you got to eat your okra."

The fuller figured one replied:
"I remember Mrs Wilsons, she still alive, she must be dead, she dead or she alive?"

"Oh no, Lord, she dead. Mrs Wilsons, she been dead a long time. You know, I bet you like collard greens."

"I do, that's true. I do, I love collard greens."

"Me too, I love em."

So I suddenly became obsessed with baby food (it was the closest thing to them) while totally eavesdropping on their conversation. Which is one of my favorite past times of living in New York City having spent a lot of years in countries where I either didn't speak the language or didn't speak it well enough to follow all the details. I was hoping to get a recipe, an anecdote or something for collard greens.

"I tell you something, I went to a store down near 125th and I couldn't even find collard greens. Imagine it, no collard greens."

"They got them here, right over there."

"And I tell you, I tell you what that means. I tell you, I tell you right now, those white people are trying to get all us blacks and Hispanics to move out to, I don't know, cotton picking Brooklyn or the Bronx or something. Did you hear about the Apollo theater, did you - some white man bought that, he did, we was "associated" with some other theater but a white man, owning the Apollo theater."

Then there was a lull in the conversation and the larger lady leaned in and whispered something. To which the petite lady answered:

"I don't care, I'll tell them to their faces, where were all them white folk years ago when no one wanted to live here?"

At this junction in the conversation I decided to exit stage left. Didn't really think a polite, "excuse me, how would you cook these collard greens, would go down very well." But I did get my anecdote and a look into the community. And besides, her frustrations are real and very valid.

As history goes, for many years white people didn't want to live in Harlem for a very, very long time and the continued gentrification must make their blood boil. They weren't granted the same access to other neighborhoods and now they feel that they are being forced out by investors increasing the prices, building condo's and eradicating affordable housing. The stories that the superintendent told me of living here during the crack epidemic are so brutal, it would turn you off your food. Hell, the stories James told me about how this building used to operate even five years ago are disturbing enough.

And besides, I liked the old lady's fire and passion, hope I've got that much fight at her age. I definitely got my anecdote and something really more powerful than a recipe. I like that when something as ubiquitous as collard greens in this lady's world goes missing it is interpreted in such a way - food is powerful like that.

So I grabbed some beets (beetroot) and pickled them and then used them in a salad, and will ask my mother in law what to do with the collard greens. These last forever (I have trouble talking without exaggerating, so translation, a good couple of months) in the refrigerator if you store them in the pickling liquid.

1 cup of rice wine vinegar
75 g sugar
1 clove
1 teaspoon salt
5 black peppercorns
1/2 inch knob ginger, sliced
1/2 long red chili, cut in half length ways
1/2 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon brown mustard seeds
1 clove garlic, cut in half
2-3 Large Beets (beetroot)

Put everything into a pot, add 2 3/4 cups of water and bring to the boil.

Add the beets (2-3 large ones) and then simmer for 30-40 minutes or until tender.