Fear of New 'Collard' People
Collard greens are "the new kale?" So say some chic eaters, even as some concerned cultural guardians fear a new socio-economic menace: "food gentrification."
Gentrification, simply defined, is when something that you used to buy because it was cheap suddenly turns so fashionable that it is too expensive for its original consumers to afford.
We usually hear about this process as a good-news/bad-news urban story in recent decades. Depressed neighborhoods have found new vigor as less-fortunate low-income renters are sent packing like urban nomads.
Now it's happening among the people who talk about food in the way that Bill Hader's Stefon on "Saturday Night Live" reveals the latest ultrahip nightclub.
"Collards are the new kale," raved a January headline in the blog of Whole Foods, which is a great food chain if you're not worried about prices. The headline has since turned up in promotional signs in Whole Foods stores.
Can it be? Back in July 2012, fashion writer and author Derek Blasberg signaled a trend when he tweeted, "What's the biggest trend in fashion right now? Kale. Yes, I'm talking about the vegetable. It's so hot right now."
Ah, when the smart set came for the kale, I said nothing. I was not a fan of kale. But now they're coming for the collard greens. That hits closer to home.
I grew up on collard greens, whether I wanted to or not. As in countless other African-American families, collards were a basic food group all by themselves. I ate greens at home, in church basements and in other people's homes cooked into soups or stews with butter, tomatoes and spices, or simply as a side dish with or without cornbread.
And, ironically, I hated greens. Being forced to eat them only motivated me to get a good education so that someday I could afford to avoid them forever.
Little did I expect that, as a young reporter in the 1970s, collard greens, chitterlings (properly pronounced "chitlins," y'all) and other "soul food" from which I had liberated myself would become all the rage in mainstream America, which, to me, was what the media called white folks.
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