SJWs Attack Tiny House Movement for Poverty Appropriation

[HereWeGoAgain]

Yeah, I kid you not.

As if we needed more evidence that SJWs were total wack jobs anyway.


SJW Turns Against Tiny House Movement as 'Poverty Appropriation'

This background, this essential part of who I am, makes it particularly difficult to stomach the latest trend in “simple” living  -- people moving into tiny homes and trailers. How many folks, I wonder, who have engaged in the Tiny House Movement have ever actually lived in a tiny, mobile place? Because what those who can afford homes call “living light,” poor folks call “gratitude for what we’ve got.”

And it’s not just the Tiny House Movement that incites my discontent. From dumpster diving to trailer-themed bars to haute cuisine in the form of poor-household staples, it’s become trendy for those with money to appropriate the poverty lifestyle  -- and it troubles me for one simple reason. Choice.

[...]

It’s likely, from where I sit, that this back-to-nature and boxed-up simplicity is not being marketed to people like me, who come from simplicity and heightened knowledge of poverty, but to people who have not wanted for creature comforts. For them to try on, glamorize, identify with.

Such appropriation isn’t limited to the Tiny House trend, or even to the idea of simplicity. In major cities, people who come from high-income backgrounds flock to bars and restaurants that both appropriate, and mock, low-income communities. Perhaps the most egregious example is San Francisco’s Butter Bar, a trendy outpost that prides itself on being a true-blue, trailer park-themed bar, serving up the best in “trashy” cuisine and cocktails.​

I've seen the tiny houses show on HGTV! I'm still trying to figure out what the author is upset about. I wouldn't want to live in one of those tiny houses, but if someone else does, then why would that bother anyone? Damn, people are so screwy.

Oh I could definitely live in one with the right climate.
Of course i'd have a 4000 square foot Lanai with outdoor kitchen and living area.
And then I'd still need a four car shop/garage.

So your garage would be bigger than your tiny house! "Yeah, here's my house, but HERE is my garage!"

Every Man needs his Man Cave.

Sure, to keep all of your ugly things.

Hold up now!
My tools and toys are Beautiful!!!
I like to hang out with what I like to do,you get inspiration when you do.
You have your four wheeler in the garage sitting next to you as well as your truck so they provide inspiration through osmosis.

.......I guess it's no different than how chicks like to hang out in the kitchen and laundry room....

 

[ChrisL]

I've seen the tiny houses show on HGTV! I'm still trying to figure out what the author is upset about. I wouldn't want to live in one of those tiny houses, but if someone else does, then why would that bother anyone? Damn, people are so screwy.

Oh I could definitely live in one with the right climate.
Of course i'd have a 4000 square foot Lanai with outdoor kitchen and living area.
And then I'd still need a four car shop/garage.

So your garage would be bigger than your tiny house! "Yeah, here's my house, but HERE is my garage!"

Every Man needs his Man Cave.

Sure, to keep all of your ugly things.

Hold up now!
My tools and toys are Beautiful!!!
I like to hang out with what I like to do,you get inspiration when you do.
You have your four wheeler in the garage sitting next to you as well as your truck so they provide inspiration through osmosis.

.......I guess it's no different than how chicks like to hang out in the kitchen and laundry room....

I don't mind the kitchen, but the laundry room? I hate that room.

I'd rather hang out with the clothes and the shoes.

 

[ricechickie]

There is.
You have to slow-simmer them for at least three hours.

• You have to put some sort of meat in the pot; pork is best, but smoked turkey works too. If you have bacon grease around, you can dump a whole bunch of it in the pot if you don't actually have fatback or a pound of smoked bacon.
• You have to put onion in the pot.
• You have to put something bitter-tart in the pot. You can use any number of things; most folks use vinegar. If you don't put it in the pot, then it'll have to be done at the table. The flavor profile is different depending on when you add the vinegar. Some people dump in sweet, dill pickle, or a host of other kinds of relish.[1]
• You need something sweet in the pot -- whatever color sugar you have, syrup, or maybe molasses, I don't know as I've never used molasses in greens.
• You need salt and pepper in the water.
• You can put cut up tomatoes and put them in there.
• You can put firm fruits in there if you want, but peal and core/pit them if you do. Most folks who add fruits go with apples, but I've tasted peaches, plums, cherries, blackberries, and pears too. If I were going to go with fruits softer than apples and pears, I wouldn't put 'em in before the last 15 minutes of cooking. One can, I just wouldn't because I would want the fruit to still be obviously there. When I've make greens with most berry fruits, I just add them in and toss them after cooking the greens and before putting them in serving dish. Other times I just slice 'em and toss them on top of the greens in the serving dish. Anyway, you figure out what you want to do with fruits.
• You can put spices in there. What spices do you like? Those are ones to put in.

Now don't ask how much of anything to put in the pot because the answer for each ingredient is "some." One has to go through a process of trial and error to know how much is "some." I will tell you this:

• Heavily salt your water at the very start and then taste the greens about an hour after you put the lid on the pot and the cooking actually started. If you can taste salt, you need to put more greens in the pot and if it tastes like the beginnings of good, you don't need more salt. If you don't know, sprinkle in half a teaspoon of salt, stir and then taste. If you feel like you want more salt, add a quarter teaspoon, stir and taste. You can continue that process down to 1/8th of teaspoon. You should probably give it some time if go that far.
• Go easy on the spices if you opt to put them in. They and salt are the two things that can most easily turn greens into a mess that only worms, flies and maggots will eat. With spice, especially, you have to be okay with using a little bit more next time, or maybe adding some more to the pot when you reheat the leftovers. (Greens you didn't eat, should be stored in the potlikker and kept cold. Put the whole pot in the fridge, or in the shed, garage or root cellar if it's winter time.)

Also, slow cooking for a long time is essential. Don't think you are going to have good green after just an hour or two. I can tell you now, you won't, although you might have something that tastes better than you are used to. (The time can be reduced if you know what you're doing with a pressure cooker.) Also, when you go to a restaurant that offers greens, you should ask to taste the greens before you order a serving of them, because good greens is something of an art.

Now you put together a pot of greens using your take on the suggestions above -- there're enough ingredient ideas there for you to make good greens ranging from "basic" greens or "gucci" greens -- and see if you don't like 'em.


Note:

1. One time I was making greens in college. My Korean housemate had tried my greens before, but that time he asked me if I'd mind putting some of his momma's kimchi in the pot. It took me a minute, but I said okay. We put in something between 1/8th and 1/4 cup of kimchi into a eight quart pot of greens. It was completely different from anything I understood greens as tasting like, but it was damn good.
   
   I relented because up to that point, he'd been wanting me to try kimchi, and in that moment, he and I both knew I had run out of ways to demur on the kimchi. It's spicy fermented/pickled cabbage, and I was about to dump pickle relish in my greens. I couldn't very well say no without losing his respect and a piece of his friendship. Cabbage and greens weren't worth doing that.
   
   I did kimchi greens a second time so he could be sure that I did truly like it. I haven't had it or thought about it since then, but only because it doesn't occur to me to call Greg and ask if he's got some of his momma's kimchi around, and I'm not close enough to any other Koreans that I'd have access to other homemade kimchi. (Greens are the only thing for which I have used kimchi, but I suspect it'd be quite nice to use it to season a pork roast.)

That'll work!

My basic recipe:

First, I go out and pick the lowest leaves on the stalks until I have a good mess. Then I rinse them in a wheelbarrow filled with water. In the kitchen I fill a sink with cold water, add salt and rinse again - this gets off the rest of the sand and any extra uninvited protein, mostly.

In the meantime my smoked meat is simmering away on the stove. I cut out the thickest part of the stalk and stack the leaves. Roll up like a ceegar, then cut into strips - big leaves I cut again crosswise. Into the pot of simmering smoked meat they go - add plentiful salt, some white sugar and a whole fresh hot pepper if I have one.

I serve pepper sauce on the side.

Hard to beat with large limas and cornbread...or sweet potatoes and fried meat.

ps - they freeze really well.

This is how my auntie taught me to make greens.

 

[Jarlaxle]

It could win in Colorado.

It likely could. They'd likely "bitch and moan" about how unhealthy Southern cooking is, but they wouldn't complain about the taste.

I have a colleague who lives in Niwot, CO. They have plenty of "gucci" places to eat there, but not one Southern restaurant.

Denver, I'm told, has a handful of decent Southern restaurants, though the report I got about one of them is that the food was definitely tasty enough, but the collard greens were a touch too bitter, though otherwise good. I'm sure you have your "secrets" for collards just as I do, and though nobody else makes them quite the same, they don't have to because you still know good collards when you get them.

My "read" on that is that they either went to the wrong place or Denver needs another Southern restaurant because I feel that if one can't "thrown down" on some collard greens, there's bound to be more one can't "throw down" on. After all, how hard is it to "put some good stuff in a pot" with leaves and let it simmer for long time until it tastes real good?

You pompous ass.

Are you trying to insult the art of greens cooking?

I have no further words.

I do know the best methods of greens cooking.

I bet you don't.

Give them to the rabbit and cook something other than weeds?

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Oh I could definitely live in one with the right climate.
Of course i'd have a 4000 square foot Lanai with outdoor kitchen and living area.
And then I'd still need a four car shop/garage.

So your garage would be bigger than your tiny house! "Yeah, here's my house, but HERE is my garage!"

Every Man needs his Man Cave.

Sure, to keep all of your ugly things.

Hold up now!
My tools and toys are Beautiful!!!
I like to hang out with what I like to do,you get inspiration when you do.
You have your four wheeler in the garage sitting next to you as well as your truck so they provide inspiration through osmosis.

.......I guess it's no different than how chicks like to hang out in the kitchen and laundry room....

I don't mind the kitchen, but the laundry room? I hate that room.

I'd rather hang out with the clothes and the shoes.

I thanked The Lord when I met my Wife 26 years ago....
I've done about a dozen loads of laundry in all those years.

 

[Marion Morrison]

I have wayy too much crap for a Tiny house.

I'm thinking metal building.

 

[Marion Morrison]

It could win in Colorado.

It likely could. They'd likely "bitch and moan" about how unhealthy Southern cooking is, but they wouldn't complain about the taste.

I have a colleague who lives in Niwot, CO. They have plenty of "gucci" places to eat there, but not one Southern restaurant.

Denver, I'm told, has a handful of decent Southern restaurants, though the report I got about one of them is that the food was definitely tasty enough, but the collard greens were a touch too bitter, though otherwise good. I'm sure you have your "secrets" for collards just as I do, and though nobody else makes them quite the same, they don't have to because you still know good collards when you get them.

My "read" on that is that they either went to the wrong place or Denver needs another Southern restaurant because I feel that if one can't "thrown down" on some collard greens, there's bound to be more one can't "throw down" on. After all, how hard is it to "put some good stuff in a pot" with leaves and let it simmer for long time until it tastes real good?

You pompous ass.

Are you trying to insult the art of greens cooking?

I have no further words.

I do know the best methods of greens cooking.

I bet you don't.

Give them to the rabbit and cook something other than weeds?

Rabbit and greens you say? That could work!

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

It could win in Colorado.

It likely could. They'd likely "bitch and moan" about how unhealthy Southern cooking is, but they wouldn't complain about the taste.

I have a colleague who lives in Niwot, CO. They have plenty of "gucci" places to eat there, but not one Southern restaurant.

Denver, I'm told, has a handful of decent Southern restaurants, though the report I got about one of them is that the food was definitely tasty enough, but the collard greens were a touch too bitter, though otherwise good. I'm sure you have your "secrets" for collards just as I do, and though nobody else makes them quite the same, they don't have to because you still know good collards when you get them.

My "read" on that is that they either went to the wrong place or Denver needs another Southern restaurant because I feel that if one can't "thrown down" on some collard greens, there's bound to be more one can't "throw down" on. After all, how hard is it to "put some good stuff in a pot" with leaves and let it simmer for long time until it tastes real good?

You pompous ass.

Are you trying to insult the art of greens cooking?

I have no further words.

I do know the best methods of greens cooking.

I bet you don't.

Give them to the rabbit and cook something other than weeds?

Rabbit and greens you say? That could work!

Oh hell yes it does!! You do need a little bacon grease though.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

I have wayy too much crap for a Tiny house.

I'm thinking metal building.

See post #28

 

[usmbguest5318]

That's "Greens 101" right there, if one asks me. Slow simmer that for three or four hours, and you got "slammin' good greens."

Greens do freeze well, but I never do freeze them because in my family, if there are greens cooked, they will get eaten, be they cold or hot. When we were kids, I think jellybeans, M&Ms and potato chips might have been the only things that got eaten faster than greens.

Leftover BBQ ribs didn't hang around for much past the next day, if they even made it through the whole of the next day. I can't tell you how many times we got fussed at somewhere between three and five o'clock because over the course of the day we'd pinched enough greens and snagged a rib here and rib there that the leftovers that Momma and/or Miss Bea thought they were serving for dinner were gone. Then they'd sit in the kitchen and eat whatever we'd left and set about deciding what was gonna be for dinner.

Lot of special childhood memories served up in the kitchen! Up until just a few years ago I grew our greens - they produce for a long time. Almost always had way more than I could use or give away so I'd cook some up just for the freezer...for times they weren't growing.

Sometimes I yearn for the days of sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch, sharing a glass of cold sweet tea and shelling peas with my grandmother. She always wore an apron with big pockets...sometimes they'd hold treats.

Almost always had way more than I could use or give away so I'd cook some up just for the freezer

Gotcha....It seems even the smallest veggie garden can produce more stuff than one can use or give away, assuming one can keep the "thieves" -- deer, rabbits, fox, possums, birds, raccoons, skunks, etc. -- at bay. LOL Greens, tomatoes and peppers definitely fall into the "way more than you need" group. Fruit trees do too.

She always wore an apron with big pockets...sometimes they'd hold treats.

I know about big pockets. Overalls have them too.

Dad wore overalls while working around the house and yard. I did too when my kids were young and my wife and I were still just "getting our feet planted." Dad likes hard candy, so that's what he had in his pockets. Miss. Bea loved Reese's Cups: "Here you go, but don't you tell on me, now. Ya hear?"

Lot of special childhood memories served up in the kitchen!

Absolutely!

 

[usmbguest5318]

It could win in Colorado.

It likely could. They'd likely "bitch and moan" about how unhealthy Southern cooking is, but they wouldn't complain about the taste.

I have a colleague who lives in Niwot, CO. They have plenty of "gucci" places to eat there, but not one Southern restaurant.

Denver, I'm told, has a handful of decent Southern restaurants, though the report I got about one of them is that the food was definitely tasty enough, but the collard greens were a touch too bitter, though otherwise good. I'm sure you have your "secrets" for collards just as I do, and though nobody else makes them quite the same, they don't have to because you still know good collards when you get them.

My "read" on that is that they either went to the wrong place or Denver needs another Southern restaurant because I feel that if one can't "thrown down" on some collard greens, there's bound to be more one can't "throw down" on. After all, how hard is it to "put some good stuff in a pot" with leaves and let it simmer for long time until it tastes real good?

You pompous ass.

Are you trying to insult the art of greens cooking?

I have no further words.

I do know the best methods of greens cooking.

I bet you don't.

Give them to the rabbit and cook something other than weeds?

Rabbit and greens you say? That could work!

Thank you! I was thinking exactly that.

 

[Yousaidwhat]

I reckon it better come with wifi and a Starbucks machine.

At least with a bar fridge and a blender.

 

[Marion Morrison]

There is.
You have to slow-simmer them for at least three hours.

• You have to put some sort of meat in the pot; pork is best, but smoked turkey works too. If you have bacon grease around, you can dump a whole bunch of it in the pot if you don't actually have fatback or a pound of smoked bacon.
• You have to put onion in the pot.
• You have to put something bitter-tart in the pot. You can use any number of things; most folks use vinegar. If you don't put it in the pot, then it'll have to be done at the table. The flavor profile is different depending on when you add the vinegar. Some people dump in sweet, dill pickle, or a host of other kinds of relish.[1]
• You need something sweet in the pot -- whatever color sugar you have, syrup, or maybe molasses, I don't know as I've never used molasses in greens.
• You need salt and pepper in the water.
• You can put cut up tomatoes and put them in there.
• You can put firm fruits in there if you want, but peal and core/pit them if you do. Most folks who add fruits go with apples, but I've tasted peaches, plums, cherries, blackberries, and pears too. If I were going to go with fruits softer than apples and pears, I wouldn't put 'em in before the last 15 minutes of cooking. One can, I just wouldn't because I would want the fruit to still be obviously there. When I've make greens with most berry fruits, I just add them in and toss them after cooking the greens and before putting them in serving dish. Other times I just slice 'em and toss them on top of the greens in the serving dish. Anyway, you figure out what you want to do with fruits.
• You can put spices in there. What spices do you like? Those are ones to put in.

Now don't ask how much of anything to put in the pot because the answer for each ingredient is "some." One has to go through a process of trial and error to know how much is "some." I will tell you this:

• Heavily salt your water at the very start and then taste the greens about an hour after you put the lid on the pot and the cooking actually started. If you can taste salt, you need to put more greens in the pot and if it tastes like the beginnings of good, you don't need more salt. If you don't know, sprinkle in half a teaspoon of salt, stir and then taste. If you feel like you want more salt, add a quarter teaspoon, stir and taste. You can continue that process down to 1/8th of teaspoon. You should probably give it some time if go that far.
• Go easy on the spices if you opt to put them in. They and salt are the two things that can most easily turn greens into a mess that only worms, flies and maggots will eat. With spice, especially, you have to be okay with using a little bit more next time, or maybe adding some more to the pot when you reheat the leftovers. (Greens you didn't eat, should be stored in the potlikker and kept cold. Put the whole pot in the fridge, or in the shed, garage or root cellar if it's winter time.)

Also, slow cooking for a long time is essential. Don't think you are going to have good green after just an hour or two. I can tell you now, you won't, although you might have something that tastes better than you are used to. (The time can be reduced if you know what you're doing with a pressure cooker.) Also, when you go to a restaurant that offers greens, you should ask to taste the greens before you order a serving of them, because good greens is something of an art.

Now you put together a pot of greens using your take on the suggestions above -- there're enough ingredient ideas there for you to make good greens ranging from "basic" greens or "gucci" greens -- and see if you don't like 'em.


Note:

1. One time I was making greens in college. My Korean housemate had tried my greens before, but that time he asked me if I'd mind putting some of his momma's kimchi in the pot. It took me a minute, but I said okay. We put in something between 1/8th and 1/4 cup of kimchi into a eight quart pot of greens. It was completely different from anything I understood greens as tasting like, but it was damn good.
   
   I relented because up to that point, he'd been wanting me to try kimchi, and in that moment, he and I both knew I had run out of ways to demur on the kimchi. It's spicy fermented/pickled cabbage, and I was about to dump pickle relish in my greens. I couldn't very well say no without losing his respect and a piece of his friendship. Cabbage and greens weren't worth doing that.
   
   I did kimchi greens a second time so he could be sure that I did truly like it. I haven't had it or thought about it since then, but only because it doesn't occur to me to call Greg and ask if he's got some of his momma's kimchi around, and I'm not close enough to any other Koreans that I'd have access to other homemade kimchi. (Greens are the only thing for which I have used kimchi, but I suspect it'd be quite nice to use it to season a pork roast.)

That'll work!

My basic recipe:

First, I go out and pick the lowest leaves on the stalks until I have a good mess. Then I rinse them in a wheelbarrow filled with water. In the kitchen I fill a sink with cold water, add salt and rinse again - this gets off the rest of the sand and any extra uninvited protein, mostly.

In the meantime my smoked meat is simmering away on the stove. I cut out the thickest part of the stalk and stack the leaves. Roll up like a ceegar, then cut into strips - big leaves I cut again crosswise. Into the pot of simmering smoked meat they go - add plentiful salt, some white sugar and a whole fresh hot pepper if I have one.

I serve pepper sauce on the side.

Hard to beat with large limas and cornbread...or sweet potatoes and fried meat.

ps - they freeze really well.

This is how my auntie taught me to make greens.

I never knew you were black.

 

[Yousaidwhat]

PS: Eating cheap may enable one to acquire wealth. My friend and me were talking about going to Colorado and opening a restaurant. One that serves Southern breakfasts and lunches.

Well, that would be "feeding" cheap -- the stuff of a typical Southern breakfast (not including garnishes and decorations) generally has among the lowest going food costs of just about any style of cuisine -- but as owners of the place, yes, you'd likely, and often, also eat well but quite inexpensively...everyone who owns a "proper" restaurant generally does, after all.

Yeah uhh, you couldn't put a decent Southern breakfast together if your life depended on it.

You're better off not speaking of things outside your realm of expertise, ok?

Ok, you have a vocabulary.

Whip me up some biscuits and gravy.

They eat much poorer choices in just about every section of the country.

Don't forget the eggs on top, do you know how they're supposed to be cooked?

Of course you don't.

STFU on this subject.

Furthermore that wasn't what I meant.

Way to miss the point, fella.

Dude, I live in D.C. I grew up in D.C. My ancestors in both my parent's family fought for the CSA in the the Civil War. I grew up with cans of bacon grease and sausage grease in the fridge. "Crawdads" and grits were regular breakfast items.

Biscuits made from any milk other than buttermilk is just bread. Why does anyone pay extra for nonstick cookware when nothing sticks to a cast iron skillet to begin with as long as you know what you're doing when you cook with it? Although if you got momma riled, your face, butt or whatever would stick to bottom of it when she hit you with a hot one.

That means you have that gross DC/ MD accent.
Pitcher bain soot owen. We're goon danny ayshun to Ayshun City.
( Put your bathing suit on. We're going down to the ocean to Ocean City.)

I thought that was the accent of those in Baltimore or Balmer as it's pronounced.

 

[Yousaidwhat]

Wat? I thought SJWs were the same idiot dirty hippie types that would like to buy a tiny house and plant it in someone's back yard.

I am confuzzled now.

PS: Eating cheap may enable one to acquire wealth.

My friend and me were talking about going to Colorado and opening a restaurant.

One that serves Southern breakfasts and lunches.

Forget the grits!

WHAT!?

No grits.

You don't know what you're missing.

 

[Marion Morrison]

Wat? I thought SJWs were the same idiot dirty hippie types that would like to buy a tiny house and plant it in someone's back yard.

I am confuzzled now.

PS: Eating cheap may enable one to acquire wealth.

My friend and me were talking about going to Colorado and opening a restaurant.

One that serves Southern breakfasts and lunches.

Forget the grits!

Wat? I thought SJWs were the same idiot dirty hippie types that would like to buy a tiny house and plant it in someone's back yard.

I am confuzzled now.

PS: Eating cheap may enable one to acquire wealth.

My friend and me were talking about going to Colorado and opening a restaurant.

One that serves Southern breakfasts and lunches.

Forget the grits!

WHAT!?

No grits.

You don't know what you're missing.

I currently have about 8 lbs of grits.

Maybe he just never had anybody cook 'um right.

 

[Yousaidwhat]

Wat? I thought SJWs were the same idiot dirty hippie types that would like to buy a tiny house and plant it in someone's back yard.

I am confuzzled now.

PS: Eating cheap may enable one to acquire wealth.

My friend and me were talking about going to Colorado and opening a restaurant.

One that serves Southern breakfasts and lunches.

Forget the grits!

Wat? I thought SJWs were the same idiot dirty hippie types that would like to buy a tiny house and plant it in someone's back yard.

I am confuzzled now.

PS: Eating cheap may enable one to acquire wealth.

My friend and me were talking about going to Colorado and opening a restaurant.

One that serves Southern breakfasts and lunches.

Forget the grits!

WHAT!?

No grits.

You don't know what you're missing.

I currently have about 8 lbs of grits.

Maybe he just never had anybody cook 'um right.

8 pounds of instant grits.

That's alot of boxes.

 

[2aguy]

I was for a hot second contemplating which piece of my collard recipe I'd share with you. Then I thought, "Oh, hell no!...No he didn't just try baiting me into giving up my potlikker recipe !!??!! Who does he think just fell off the turnip truck?" What I will share, however, is that my favorite way to eat greens is with my homemade pepper relish, course grated black pepper and vinegar -- I like really old balsamic best, but regular yellow vinegar is great too.

That's also something else that was always in the fridge. If I saw less than a quart of potlikker, depending on the time of day I noticed, if greens weren't already in the making, I could be sure they would definitely be part of the next day's lunch -- because I wanted them instead of lettuce on my lunch sandwich -- and dinner because Mom and Dad wanted greens too. That stuff is as much a reason for having greens as are the greens. I mean, really. What the hell isn't really good with potlikker? I haven't tried but, but I suspect it'd make poached eggs better. I've used it to make omelettes; it worked for that.

That reminds me of a time back in the early '70s when Mom decided to have a fondue dinner party. She had all sorts of "traditionally Swiss"dipping sauces, but she also had potlikker in one of the bowls. People asked what it was and when Mom told them it was potlikker, they thought it was some sort of Swiss thing and nobody told them it wasn't. But they sure loved everything dipped in potlikker either before or after they'd dipped in something else, even the chocolate.

Eating collard greens, turnip greens and such was always associated with poor peoples food in my family, and I had enough of it.

There must be an art to making that crap taste good but my Mom didnt know how to do it; IT WAS AWFUL! Oh my Gawd, I preferred to eat spinach to that greens crap, bleh, spit hack spit hack spit.

There are times I recall with fondness about growing up poor in Texas, but EATING GREENS SURE AS HELL ISNT ONE OF THEM!

eeewwww, spit hack spit hack spit

Eating collard greens, turnip greens and such was always associated with poor peoples food in my family,

De gustibus non disputandum est.

What is there to say? Different families have different traditions. That is what it is. Ours is to some days eat high on the hog and others not so much. No matter anything else, all food is associated pretty much exclusively with one thing that makes everything else irrelevant: how it tastes.

A lot of that had to do with when certain food items were in season. For instance, ham would be complemented with peaches in the summer and apples in the fall. When the Silver Queen corn was ready, it would show up in at least one meal a day. I remember plenty of times taking a day trip somewhere and stopping at a roadside stand to buy corn and other local produce. We kids sit in the back and shuck the corn. Partly, so it was ready to be cooked by the time we got home, but equally as important to eat an ear on the way.

The other part of taste was how it was prepared. When "northern" company company came over, unfamiliar food items suddenly had French names. Fried and candied pig ears got described with word like glacees, orielles, confit and cochon. How do you make it? You slice pig ears into lardons and deep fry them 'til they are crispy. After the oil's drained and blotted away, you coat them with syrup, and then dredge them in spiced/herbed granulated white salt and sugar. What herbs and spice? That depends on what herbs and spices you like and which ones are in the cupboard when you make the spiced sugar. This is one thing for which dried and powdered herbs are better for this dish than are freshly minced.

Stuff like that, well cooked greens, beef short ribs, and tons of other stuff tastes so good it's stupid to not eat it, let alone not do because poor people do too. That amounts to saying, "We're too well off to eat food that tastes good." Normally, I'd follow that statement by asking, "Who the hell does that?" But in this instance, I guess I know: you and your family do. I s'pose there are other folk who do too.

There must be an art to making that crap taste good

There is.
You have to slow-simmer them for at least three hours.

• You have to put some sort of meat in the pot; pork is best, but smoked turkey works too. If you have bacon grease around, you can dump a whole bunch of it in the pot if you don't actually have fatback or a pound of smoked bacon.
• You have to put onion in the pot.
• You have to put something bitter-tart in the pot. You can use any number of things; most folks use vinegar. If you don't put it in the pot, then it'll have to be done at the table. The flavor profile is different depending on when you add the vinegar. Some people dump in sweet, dill pickle, or a host of other kinds of relish.[1]
• You need something sweet in the pot -- whatever color sugar you have, syrup, or maybe molasses, I don't know as I've never used molasses in greens.
• You need salt and pepper in the water.
• You can put cut up tomatoes and put them in there.
• You can put firm fruits in there if you want, but peal and core/pit them if you do. Most folks who add fruits go with apples, but I've tasted peaches, plums, cherries, blackberries, and pears too. If I were going to go with fruits softer than apples and pears, I wouldn't put 'em in before the last 15 minutes of cooking. One can, I just wouldn't because I would want the fruit to still be obviously there. When I've make greens with most berry fruits, I just add them in and toss them after cooking the greens and before putting them in serving dish. Other times I just slice 'em and toss them on top of the greens in the serving dish. Anyway, you figure out what you want to do with fruits.
• You can put spices in there. What spices do you like? Those are ones to put in.

Now don't ask how much of anything to put in the pot because the answer for each ingredient is "some." One has to go through a process of trial and error to know how much is "some." I will tell you this:

• Heavily salt your water at the very start and then taste the greens about an hour after you put the lid on the pot and the cooking actually started. If you can taste salt, you need to put more greens in the pot and if it tastes like the beginnings of good, you don't need more salt. If you don't know, sprinkle in half a teaspoon of salt, stir and then taste. If you feel like you want more salt, add a quarter teaspoon, stir and taste. You can continue that process down to 1/8th of teaspoon. You should probably give it some time if go that far.
• Go easy on the spices if you opt to put them in. They and salt are the two things that can most easily turn greens into a mess that only worms, flies and maggots will eat. With spice, especially, you have to be okay with using a little bit more next time, or maybe adding some more to the pot when you reheat the leftovers. (Greens you didn't eat, should be stored in the potlikker and kept cold. Put the whole pot in the fridge, or in the shed, garage or root cellar if it's winter time.)

Also, slow cooking for a long time is essential. Don't think you are going to have good green after just an hour or two. I can tell you now, you won't, although you might have something that tastes better than you are used to. (The time can be reduced if you know what you're doing with a pressure cooker.) Also, when you go to a restaurant that offers greens, you should ask to taste the greens before you order a serving of them, because good greens is something of an art.

Now you put together a pot of greens using your take on the suggestions above -- there're enough ingredient ideas there for you to make good greens ranging from "basic" greens or "gucci" greens -- and see if you don't like 'em.


Note:

1. One time I was making greens in college. My Korean housemate had tried my greens before, but that time he asked me if I'd mind putting some of his momma's kimchi in the pot. It took me a minute, but I said okay. We put in something between 1/8th and 1/4 cup of kimchi into a eight quart pot of greens. It was completely different from anything I understood greens as tasting like, but it was damn good.
   
   I relented because up to that point, he'd been wanting me to try kimchi, and in that moment, he and I both knew I had run out of ways to demur on the kimchi. It's spicy fermented/pickled cabbage, and I was about to dump pickle relish in my greens. I couldn't very well say no without losing his respect and a piece of his friendship. Cabbage and greens weren't worth doing that.
   
   I did kimchi greens a second time so he could be sure that I did truly like it. I haven't had it or thought about it since then, but only because it doesn't occur to me to call Greg and ask if he's got some of his momma's kimchi around, and I'm not close enough to any other Koreans that I'd have access to other homemade kimchi. (Greens are the only thing for which I have used kimchi, but I suspect it'd be quite nice to use it to season a pork roast.)

So....you put just about everything in the pot.....and then leave out the collard greens........?

 

[usmbguest5318]

PS: Eating cheap may enable one to acquire wealth. My friend and me were talking about going to Colorado and opening a restaurant. One that serves Southern breakfasts and lunches.

Well, that would be "feeding" cheap -- the stuff of a typical Southern breakfast (not including garnishes and decorations) generally has among the lowest going food costs of just about any style of cuisine -- but as owners of the place, yes, you'd likely, and often, also eat well but quite inexpensively...everyone who owns a "proper" restaurant generally does, after all.

Yeah uhh, you couldn't put a decent Southern breakfast together if your life depended on it.

You're better off not speaking of things outside your realm of expertise, ok?

Ok, you have a vocabulary.

Whip me up some biscuits and gravy.

They eat much poorer choices in just about every section of the country.

Don't forget the eggs on top, do you know how they're supposed to be cooked?

Of course you don't.

STFU on this subject.

Furthermore that wasn't what I meant.

Way to miss the point, fella.

Dude, I live in D.C. I grew up in D.C. My ancestors in both my parent's family fought for the CSA in the the Civil War. I grew up with cans of bacon grease and sausage grease in the fridge. "Crawdads" and grits were regular breakfast items.

Biscuits made from any milk other than buttermilk is just bread. Why does anyone pay extra for nonstick cookware when nothing sticks to a cast iron skillet to begin with as long as you know what you're doing when you cook with it? Although if you got momma riled, your face, butt or whatever would stick to bottom of it when she hit you with a hot one.

That means you have that gross DC/ MD accent.
Pitcher bain soot owen. We're goon danny ayshun to Ayshun City.
( Put your bathing suit on. We're going down to the ocean to Ocean City.)

I thought that was the accent of those in Baltimore or Balmer as it's pronounced.

It's close enough to say and think that if you aren't from the Mid-Atlantic region.

I have to admit, I think accent's are pretty cool, even the ones I don't like are still cool. I don't know where the guy who wrote "ayshun" is from. I do know that the way I and other locals would pronounce "ayshun" doesn't come out sounding the way we/they say "ocean." Where that member is from, that phonetic spelling probably does reflect the way to depict what Marylanders sound like.

The first time I looked at his emboldened sentence, I thought, "WTF? That "sounds" like Middle English, not Delmarva." It took me a few times of reading his phonetic spelling to figure out how it resembled the Mid-Atl sound.

This is what come to mind when I first read the emboldened text, especially upon reading "soot."

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour,
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth...
-- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, "General Prologue"
​

P.S.

Anyone here know where kids in "regular" school are required to from memory recite any parts of Chaucer or some other Middle English classic?​

 

[ChrisL]

It could win in Colorado.

It likely could. They'd likely "bitch and moan" about how unhealthy Southern cooking is, but they wouldn't complain about the taste.

I have a colleague who lives in Niwot, CO. They have plenty of "gucci" places to eat there, but not one Southern restaurant.

Denver, I'm told, has a handful of decent Southern restaurants, though the report I got about one of them is that the food was definitely tasty enough, but the collard greens were a touch too bitter, though otherwise good. I'm sure you have your "secrets" for collards just as I do, and though nobody else makes them quite the same, they don't have to because you still know good collards when you get them.

My "read" on that is that they either went to the wrong place or Denver needs another Southern restaurant because I feel that if one can't "thrown down" on some collard greens, there's bound to be more one can't "throw down" on. After all, how hard is it to "put some good stuff in a pot" with leaves and let it simmer for long time until it tastes real good?

You pompous ass.

Are you trying to insult the art of greens cooking?

I have no further words.

I do know the best methods of greens cooking.

I bet you don't.

Give them to the rabbit and cook something other than weeds?

I don't know how anyone can actually like that slimy stuff either. Southerners are weird.