If you’ve had enough White Christmas, or perhaps Red Christmas from blowing your budget, your luck is about to change. Now you can look forward to a Green New Year.
While across the globe, an economic crisis has put a damper on spirits and bank accounts, there is a glimmer of hope this New Year, and it’s called collard greens. A traditional New Year’s dish in the Southern United States, collard greens are believed to bring a year’s worth of good fortune when eaten on the first day of the year. And while the borders are still open to free trade, this is one more custom I am going to borrow from my American cousins.
These large leafy vegetables, resembling greenback dollars, are one of the oldest members of the cabbage family, dating back to ancient Greece. Trying to get my hands on a bundle was more difficult than scoring a sold-out Star Wars Light Sabre. I called every grocery store and specialty produce market in the book, inquiring about these lucky leaves. Most people I spoke with had no idea what I was even talking about, with comments ranging from the ridiculous — “Coloured greens? What colour are you looking for?” — to the sublime — “Cull our greens? Yes, we only put out the freshest ones.”
Nothing creates desire quite like scarcity. The more unavailable they were, the more valuable they became. I decided to brave the icy roads and bitter cold, to find me some collard greens. While on the way to a popular big box grocer, I took a detour to Choices Markets, a place I’d heard of, but never been. Well, not only did they know what collard greens were, they were getting a shipment in the next morning. So there I was, the next day, picking organic collards from the shelf when the produce manager commented, “I had a feeling someone would be looking for collard greens this year.” She must have the gift of prophecy to know of my desperate search for the elusive collard.
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