January 15, 2011

Collard greens have been a part of Southern foodways and folklore for centuries; collards were among the first crops brought to the South by the English. Native Americans called collards “Quelites” and adapted them to their agriculture, and enslaved Africans brought their tradition of simmering them slowly over low heat until the collards are tender and the water has boiled down to a nutrient-rich liquid called pot liquor.

Kay Moss and Kathryn Hoffman, authors of The Backcountry Housewife - A Study of Eighteenth-Century Foods maintained that one reason for the popularity of greens in the Carolina Backcountry (where there were initially few African Americans) was that the 17th century Scots were accustomed to eating greens or potherbs “from the yard” along with their oatcakes or oatmeal. The switch to corn cakes or mush along with their greens in the18th century Carolina backcountry probably wasn’t too difficult of a transition.

In an editorial in the Charlotte Observer in 1907, Joseph P. Caldwell extolled the virtues of pot liquor, writing, “The North Carolinian who is not familiar with pot liquor has suffered in his early education and needs to go back and begin it over again.”

The benefits of pot liquor consumption are even part of the Congressional Record. Huey P. Long, senator from Louisiana during the Great Depression, included a treatis on the benefits of sopping up pot liquor with cornbread in a 15 1/2 hour filabuster on the floor of the United States Senate.

“The North Carolinian who is not familiar with pot liquor has suffered in his early education and needs to go back and begin it over again.”

– Joseph P. Caldwell, editorial in the Charlotte Observer, 1907.