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It’s probably not worth speculating on why exactly collard greens are not widely eaten outside of the American south. Growing up in the southwest and migrating to the northeast and then to Philadelphia, I hadn’t eaten them until well into my twenties. But as vegetables go, they’re almost perfect. They taste great cooked in a little bacon grease, accompanied by onions, garlic, tomatoes, or almost anything you want to add to them. I recently tried a variation on the technique described in the video below that was totally vegetarian, substituting butter for bacon grease. The nutritional benefits are stunning, bacon fat notwithstanding:

Collard leaves are rich in calcium (226 mg per cup, cooked), vitamins B1, B2, B9, and C (which may be leached by cooking, however), as well as beta-carotene (pro-vitamin A). Each 100 g of leaves provides 46 calories (190 kilojoules) of food energy and contains 4 g of protein, 0.5 grams of fat, 7 g of carbohydrates.

Widely considered to be healthful foods, they are high in vitamin C and soluble fiber and contain multiple nutrients with potent anti-cancer properties: diindolylmethane, sulforaphane and selenium.

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have recently discovered that 3,3′-Diindolylmethane in Brassica vegetables such as collard greens is a potent modulator of the innate immune response system with potent anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-cancer activity.

Another remarkable thing about them, unlike many other greens, is that they can be frozen almost indefinitely before being reheated. And don’t even get me–or that nut Zell Miller–started on the virtues of potlikker. (Hell, it rates its own blog). Anyway, here’s how I make my Philadelphia Collard Greens: