I Ate White People’s Collard Greens and It Tasted Like Oppression

Discussion in 'Food and Diet' started by OckyDub, Dec 10, 2015.

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  1. OckyDub

    OckyDub is a Verified MemberOckyDub I gave the Loc'ness monstah about $3.50
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    THIS SHIT HAD ME CRACKING DA FUK UP...
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    Last Friday, the family and I went out on the town to eat and decided to try a local restaurant. It’s time we do as the Marylanders do. Or something like that. So I chose a restaurant touted for its farm-fresh offerings [read: hipster fare.] The menu looked like something I could roll with. When we arrived, I chose the Southern fried chicken with collard greens and mashed potatoes. Yes, collard greens.

    Those collard greens were an utter wasteland of Whiteness.
    But let me first tell you how I even came to the trash decision of eating them. I consider myself “from the South” without being exactly…Southern. We’ve hashed out my disdain for peach cobbler and other typically Southern foods already. Still, I’m not completely lost. I was initially suspicious about these so-called “collard greens.” Even though I’m not possessive of sweet tea, I need my fried chicken on point, my collard greens seasoned for the Lawd, my mashed potatoes creamy with a little lump, and somebody’s Black mama to have put her entire well moisturized foot in all of them.

    No Black mama was in sight. Instead, there were waiters and waitresses in plaid and denim (the farm theme, remember?) I briefly remembered reading about food gentrification making traditionally Black Southern foods “new.” Collard greens were the new It leafy green on the block. I rationalized, if the restaurant couldn’t get the collard greens right, we would always have the chicken and mashed potatoes. Right?

    Let me be real… Normally even the consolation prize of mashed potatoes and chicken couldn’t sell me on the idea of eating collard greens from a non-soul food restaurant. I would have voted nawl completely if not for one thing: ham hocks. Oh, ham hocks, those fatty fat fattening hunks of deliciousness my mama puts in her collard greens, with a side of fatback. Ham hocks are seated at the right hand of the throne of soul food glory. A lightbulb came on in my head.

    Oh, these collard greens can’t be THAT bad, if they know enough to put ham hocks in the pot! I can trust these hipster White folks with my collards. How much could they f@#% it up with ham hocks in there?!
    My ancestors told me not to do it. Sh!t, my husband told me not to do it. He looked at me skeptically like, “You really gon’ do this?” I really was. I ordered the “Southern Fried Chicken with Collards Greens and Mashed Potatoes” in Potomac, Maryland, with all the confidence of Sherman marching to sea. Nowhere near the South. Or a Black mama.

    When the waiter brought out my plate, it only took one glance for me to know these collard greens had been done wrong. The poor things looked sadder than all 400 years of chattel slavery. I say this because even in the midst of centuries of Terrible Whiteness, my ancestors still found the wherewithal to make collard greens delicious. My temerity faltered. I sniffed the air above the little glass bowl and got…nothing. A little earthiness (farm fresh!) and dassit.

    I squinted in the dim lighting. The collard greens were not quite the right color. Too pale a green? Too blanched? Something I couldn’t place was off. The sliced leaves were utterly limp, as if the plant’s usual robust starchiness had been wrung out of it. #Husbae was trying to hold in his laughter. I made a face at him.

    “I’m still gonna eat these collard greens!”
    I swiped at the vegetable with my fork and took a deep breath. I opened my mouth and shoved the utensil in. I wanted to cry. For my Black mama. For your Black mama. For the organic dirt that grew this plant to be drowned by hipsters. For the pig that died to be a decoy and added no taste whatsoever to those leaves. The collard greens were blander than a cup of room-temp tap water. No spice? No peppers? No garlic?!

    Harriet Tubman ain’t free us so I could feel this oppressed in 2015 by soulless veggies on a plate.

    I reached for the salt, by this time crying enough tears to season the hapless greens, laughing. My husband was bent over in stitches. I hiccuped. More salt. Tasted it again. Oh, God, no. More salt. I looked for the hot sauce. Then I remembered where I was: Up Norf, in a hipster restaurant so far from Black soul food even the collard greens had given up the (holy) ghost. I’m sure I could have asked for some Tabasco, but by then I was afraid of what they considered “hot” sauce. One more shake of salt. Another nibble.

    Nothing. Nothing could save them. Just flatlined. Not salt, not hot sauce, not a Black mama, not a Black Friend, not Sounds of Blackness, not even Black Jesus. I thought they couldn’t mess up collard greens (it’s just a vegetable!) but CHALLONJ ACCEPTED! Bite after bite of mediocrity, like so much late night television. I learned my lesson. Along with macaroni and cheese, collard greens will have to go on the list of Things I Only Eat at Black Restaurants. I apologized to my ancestors and prayed my GI tract could absorb oppression of this magnitude.

    At least the chicken was crispy?

    What’s the worst food you ever tasted that you regretted ordering? Note to #AllWhitePeople: I am sure most of your food is delightful. #AllFoodsMatter

    http://trulytafakari.com/ate-white-peoples-collard-greens-tasted-like-oppression/
     
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  2. DreG

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  3. DreG

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  4. grownman

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    Hmmm, I guess you needed a good ol slap upside your head.
     
  5. ControlledXaos

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    Well I'm a mustard greens guy myself. But they cook the same.

    Every White Lady southern style restaurant I have been to had Miss Mary (pronounced May-ree) or Eartharine or Mister Willie back there on the stove. Linda was not cooking anything. Or if she was she was on dessert duty.

    Author's mistake was looking for soul food in the Maryland area and not going to the hood to begin with. So... What were they really expecting? Lol

    Every time I have been outside of the deep/Gulf south and tried over priced "soul" food, I have said "if this is what these people have been lined outside for, I could make a killing with my culinary skillz." lol
     
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  6. alton

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    Whoever wrote this should've KNOWN better. I've watched enough Food Network shows to know the better part of "them" season food with ONLY "...a pinch of salt and pepper" and call it a day. And a HIPSTER joint at that!! They probably threw those things in a pot (didn't even clean them) boiled 'em and threw 'em in a bowl and called it a day. But, I bet the Hipsters love 'em. Lord only knows what the author would've have gotten had they asked for hot sauce. Some "Farmer Joe's Organic Fire Sauce" B.S., thats literally nothing but pureed hot and red bell peppers, no seasoning...just peppers.
     
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  7. BlackguyExecutive

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    That plate reminds me of a place we have here in Tampa called "Sally's Soul Food" It should be called Sally's Attempt At Soul Food." I went there with a few colleagues and we were like NOPE!! This is not and should not be considered Soul Food or Southern Cooking. It was a Northern's impression on how Southerns Cook minus everything that makes southern cuisine the best.
     
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  8. SB3

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    This was soo funny..along w yalls commentary...lmao

    Theres a soul food restaurant here in ny that used to be bangin, but they started getn a lil name, n white folks/tourists started passing thru. So clearly, they stopped seasoning right.

    I hadnt been in a cpl years, but took my fam when they came to visit recently, n they were OOVERIT! Smh
     
  9. OhSheit

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    I had some good ass orange cake from some white lady last summer. She fucked that up!
     
  10. SB3

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  11. ControlledXaos

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    See....

    Mee Maw Linda can hook some desserts up. But she may not be who you wanna call when it's time to season the yard bird.
     
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  12. DreG

    DreG is a Featured MemberDreG Art Heaux
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    Alfred Enoch
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  13. grownman

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    Thanks for the warning because I have friends that stay there. I don't want to waste my time.
     
  14. SB3

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    If he'd let me fade that head up right quick...
     
  15. cypher21

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    LOOOOLL!!!! Noooo! :heh::mjlol::pachah1:
    Alfred's mine BTW @SB3...go back to Omari! :fantasia:

    Southern style restaurants never taste truly authentic, black or white IMO. Ever been to any This is It here in ATL? There food is ok but a tad overpriced and I know plenty of people that can make better. I think it's really just a side effect or downside to having to rapidly mass produce so much food. When you only have to cook for a small number of people (compared to a busy restaurant) it's easier get things right.
     
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  16. OckyDub

    OckyDub is a Verified MemberOckyDub I gave the Loc'ness monstah about $3.50
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    OMG yes. Glady Knight's Chicken and Waffles to me is highly overrated and over priced.
    :why::stopit:
    You want how much for a chicken thigh and waffle? FUK YOU...
    :scust:
     
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  17. SB3

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    Id imagine that a lot of their business is attached to the name, tourists, etc...so they can get away w it, unfortunately
     
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  18. cypher21

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    Yep that's another place lol I was not impressed! :nopekid:
     
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