MICHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: If you are eating at somebody's home for the holidays and they or you are from the South and/or African American, chances are you are going to be cooking and eating some greens - collards, kale, turnip greens, mustard. Maybe even - I don't know - Swiss chard or spinach. But you are definitely eating some greens. I know I will be. But why? Who better to ask than Jessica B. Harris, the renowned food writer and culinary historian? You may know her from the Netflix series inspired by one of her books, "High On The Hog," and we're happy to have her with us now. Welcome. Happy holidays to you. Thank you for joining us.
JESSICA B HARRIS: Thank you so much for having me.
MARTIN: Are greens a Southern thing or an African American thing, or can you even separate the two at this point?
HARRIS: Well, I think, even kind of beyond that, greens may be an African thing that come to the States with Africans, except the greens get swapped out. So you'll have a sossouve in Benin. You'll have molokhia in northern Africa, in Tunisia, in Egypt and other places. There are a lot of leafy green dishes.
MARTIN: I think that collards definitely were first grown in Africa.
HARRIS: Wrong. Collards are northern European greens.
MARTIN: Collards are? Oh, wow. OK.
HARRIS: Yep. Wrong about it all.
MARTIN: Brain broken. Thank you.
HARRIS: Sorry. Collards are northern European greens. Collard is a corruption of colewort. Colewort is any non-heading cabbage. The Africanism is the method of cooking - long, low and slow - and the consumption of the potlikker. Please spell it L-I-K-K-E-R.
MARTIN: And kale, too - kale is also northern European, correct?
HARRIS: I'm not a fan of kale, so I don't know.
MARTIN: OK.
HARRIS: I just don't like how it's in everything.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
HARRIS: The ubiquity of kale is what annoys me, not the kale itself.
MARTIN: (Laughter) OK. So if you go to a so-called soul food restaurant, greens are generally on the menu. But I think of them as a Sunday dinner or celebration food. You know, Christmas, maybe Easter, definitely a must on New Year's. Why is that?
HARRIS: Well, certainly the New Year's part is for folding money.
MARTIN: Folding money.
HARRIS: You have the trilogy, if you will - black-eyed peas for luck, greens for folding money 'cause the greens looks like a greenback, looks like a dollar, and pork. And that was for prosperity in another kind of way.
MARTIN: Do you have a favorite preparation? You just mentioned that you do not care for kale, so you're in good company there. A lot of people don't. But do you have a favorite preparation?
HARRIS: I prefer collards the traditional way, which is long, low and slow - as somebody once said to me, until they can wink back at you.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
HARRIS: But long, low and slow. Then I serve them with chopped onion and some form of hot sauce, which is essential, and it may be a chile-spiced vinegar of some sort.
MARTIN: You ever mix your greens?
HARRIS: I don't.
MARTIN: You don't?
HARRIS: I don't, but I know people do.
MARTIN: I know some people serve seven kinds of greens on New Year's.
HARRIS: I don't know. I've never heard of that one.
MARTIN: Yeah. You've never heard of that?
HARRIS: No.
MARTIN: It kind of goes with, you know, seven kinds of fishes. It seems like, you know, seven is the number of completion. So it seems like...
HARRIS: Well, yeah.
MARTIN: ...Seven seems right, but that's...
HARRIS: Where do they do that?
MARTIN: Well, friends of mine here do that, so - but I don't know. And they grew up with it. That's what they grew up with, so that's what they do.
HARRIS: Well, I know that in Louisiana, they do a gumbo z'herbes, which is like a green gumbo, but that's on Holy Thursday. And that's an odd number of greens that go into the pot - seven, nine, 11, 13.
MARTIN: Before I let you go, do you have any special traditions that you observe on New Year's - especially food - or at the holiday time?
HARRIS: Well, I mean, I must have some black-eyed peas. I must have Hoppin' John, which for me is black-eyed peas and rice, if you're from Charleston. Even if I've gone out to a party at somebody else's house, I come home. I have my peas with my rice - my Hoppin' John. I have my greens, and I'll have a little bite of pork, even if it's just a pork rind out of a package.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
HARRIS: I mean, it can be very basic, but it has to happen.
MARTIN: That is Jessica B. Harris. She's a professor emerita at Queens College and the author of many books. Her latest is "Braided Heritage: Stories On The Origin Of American Cuisine." Professor Harris, thank you so much for talking with us.
HARRIS: Thank you so much for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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