It’s like Auburn versus Alabama or Georgia versus Florida – a Deep South rivalry, in your mouth. Collards and turnips have their die-hard fans, to be sure, but both leafy greens win their share of competitions on any given stove and when the cooking is over, each have nearly identical teams. If turnips beat collards this year, collards will hire Nick Saban and win it all next year.?
Collards and turnips play in the rough and tumble culinary version of the SEC. You have mustard greens and black-eyed peas and salt pork running spread offenses against shut down, ham hock, potlikker defenses every week. There are always plenty of tight ones and more than a few blowouts, in the truest sense of the word, if you know what I mean about greens.
Turnips and collards, like mustard greens, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and brussels sprouts, are in the Brassica genus. Both collards and turnips are serious ingredients in Southern cooking, mainly Soul Food, where they are commonly cooked with the aforementioned ham hocks as well as fatback or neck bones.
Collards have a high nutritional value especially when cooked – and are downright inedible when raw, due to a texture that mimics flannel. Collards are natural antibiotics, boosting the immune system and even fighting cancer. C-greens, it is rumored, when eaten with black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day, improve your financial outlook considerably (because they look like folded money). That is not my just observation, that is old school tradition.
Considering the recent economic situation, if you see large numbers of Big Three Automakers and Wall Street types gobbling down collards on January 1st, 2009, you’ll know why.
Turnips are loaded in vitamins as well and can relieve rheumatoid arthritis, boost colon health, protect against atherosclerosis, lung disease and slow loss of mental function. Eat a mess of turnips and you’ll feel better and be smarter. Not sure if you’ll be any richer, that’s Mr. Collard’s job.
Collards are reliable. Turnips are sneaky. Consider this: The Yellowmargined Leaf Beetle first showed up in North America (from South America) – along with the first fire ants – at the port of Mobile, Alabama. These little creatures – like boatloads of other Southerners – love collards and turnips. University of Florida researchers started looking into this and discovered that female Yellowmargined Leaf Beetles, fed on turnips, laid about 300 more eggs than females fed on collards. There you go.
I am no turnipologist, collardologist or beetleologist, but fertility and turnips go together like greens and pork fat. Here’s a good rule of greens:
Collards = Cash. Turnips = Pregnancy.
There is one other smelly little truth about turnips and collards. When they are cooking, they will stink-up your entire house like the campfire scene in the movie, Blazing Saddles. This nasty, aromatic trait can be a blessing if you want to run off any undesirable suitors from dating your daughter.
Here’s how it works: Boil a mess of turnips and collards for about an hour before the young man shows up. When he arrives at the door, rub your stomach and explain that it’s been a rough day at the old belly ranch, but you think the virus has almost run its course. After that, you won’t need to worry about the other side effects of turnips mentioned above.