Saved by kale

My friend Carolyn says if the Messiah were to come as a plant it would be kale. I suppose she means that we would all be saved if we believed in kale. This has some truth to it; kale is one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet. But for many people, kale is an acquired taste that they haven’t acquired.

I tried for years to eat my quota of kale but encountered its inherent contradiction. If you eat it raw or cook it only until it’s bright green it’s really hard to chew. If you cook it until it’s tender it becomes gray-green and odiferously cabbagey. That is ok if you mask the sulfurous compounds with ham hocks, vinegar, hot pepper and other components of yummy overcooked southern-type greens. And if you don’t care about the nutrients that have cooked away. But what is the point of eating a nutrient-dense food if you boil away the nutrients?

A year ago August my friend Dawn, who effortlessly cooks any type of cuisine with all types of ingredients, was visiting to meet our new granddaughter.  My friendship with Dawn began years ago in Africa when Hazel's mommy was an infant herself. I remember Dawn making Greek taramosalata from scratch in Lubumbashi, Congo; showing me how to pound garlic out of its skins; and introducing me to the many uses of lemon zest.

It was the beginning of high kale season and we were making dinner together. Dawn asked me how I wanted her to prepare the kale. “However you want, dearie,” I said, knowing that whatever she came up with would taste great.

She said, “Well, I usually sauté some onions and garlic and steam the kale with that for a few minutes then chop it in the food processor.”

Ah! Duh. End of kale dilemma. Use the food processor to help you chew.

The results were outstanding, and together we discovered something else. If you season the kale with hot pepper and serve it over rice, you have an approximation of sombé, the manioc greens we used to love in Congo. Manioc greens required long boiling followed by pounding in a mortar and pestle with palm nuts. Now and then we would hire our house servant’s wife to make sombé for us, along with chicken in palm oil and tomatoes. It took no time at all to acquire that taste.

Dawn’s food-processor kale was only a distant low-fat relative of the rich genuine article but it was yummy in its own way. Especially topped with hot sauce and crushed peanuts.

Unfortunately, our CSA farm this year has no kale and I can’t bring myself to buy it from the supermarket. But I called our farmer of last year, who wasn’t running a CSA this year, and asked if she had any to spare. She did.

And so last evening, when I was all alone after a lovely long weekend with the family, I consoled myself with an all-you-can-eat dinner of kale and peanuts on brown rice--and I was saved.