What am I going to do with all this kale?

Curly Kale, photo by Rasbak

Kale wasn’t a staple of my diet growing up.  It was one of the odd cruciferous vegetables out.  We had cabbage in particular dishes, like holapki.  Broccoli was a constant, usually boiled el dente.  But we didn’t go in much for swiss chard or kale.   Maybe it’s for the same reason that we avoided spinach: it could inflame my Dad’s gout.  Really though, I suspect we didn’t eat kale because we weren’t sure what to do with it.  It was the dark, brusque leaf of the lettuce aisle, but clearly not a lettuce that lent itself to being dowsed with Caesar salad dressing and tossed with artichoke hearts and strips of salami.  When we went shopping together, my Mom got Romaine lettuce, but that was all, at least until I she began indulging developed a strange obsession I had with radishes.

So I didn’t get my first taste of kale until I went to Oberlin, and joined the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association (OSCA). The most radical coops seemed to be on a mission to ban anything with flavor or the most dubious ties to unethical practices.  I once managed to get chocolate banned in one coop (not one I dined at), solely on the basis of a rumor.  Less radical coops merely outlawed meat (except for the occasional free-range lamb or pig roast) and glorified and proselytized in support of kale. Coop chefs insisted that it was not only packed with nutrients and fiber (as though fiber were lacking in the OSCA diet), but also that it was hearty and delicious on its own merits, to the point where it could serve as the main course of a dinner, virtually without spice. 

Well-intentioned amateur chefs stir-fried it with soy sauce.  The burned aroma clung in the air like the opposite of ambrosia.  They tossed shredded up hunks of it into watery soups.  They rinsed it with dubious vigor and then tore it up into abrasive handfuls and doused it with oil and vinegar... in other words, they had no idea what to do with it either. Rather than tempering its intensity, they enhanced it, so I got the sense that I was eating some leafy metallic machine, gritty, and often oily.  I started to avoid meals where I knew there would be kale, and when co-opers praised it, I often judged them in other ways, assuming that this lack of taste spread to other avenues of their life.  Occasionally someone would suggest that it made a great smoothy, and the image frothy green kale was enough to force me to leave the conversation and head immediately to Gibson's Food Market and Bakery for an antidote in the form of a heavily malted chocolate milk shake.  I once went on a date with a girl who proclaimed fervent kale-love, and I mumbled something about it being okay, but couldn't bring myself to go on another date with her. 

That was many years ago now, but it turns out those co-op cooks were cutting edge: the last few years there’s been a kale-splosion, supposedly because kale is a superfood.  Blueberries are also a superfood, and you can make pie out of them.  “Kale pie” sounds like a cruel joke.  But one week, when they were out of clamshell plastic boxes of fresh baby spinach, and there was a sale on baby kale, I bought it.

Like all the babies I’ve ever eaten, including lamb, veal, and baby bok choy, baby kale is significantly better than its more world weary older counterpart.  First, it’s more tender, making it feasible to mix into a salad.  At least if that salad is primarily made up of other greens, and perhaps has some sautéed squash, goat cheese, and beets to provide sidekick support to this superfood.  The same goes for the taste.  Second the taste is less intense: still strong, but not confrontational.  My personal strategy for dealing with baby kale is to drizzle some honey over it and then caramelize it briefly in a dry frying pan.  I’ve tried the same with adult kale, but the more mature leaf requires more subterfuge.  More honey, and perhaps some fat: fried vegetables are even more super, right?

With a controlled amount of kale, as a break from my usual leafy greens, this can hit the spot.  But there’s only so much honeyed kale I can eat, so when I got my first CSA share for the summer, featuring pounds upon pounds of the stuff I could feel my past fears kicking in.  I tied off the bags, and put them deep in the crisper, but eventually the more friendly veggies, like squash and carrots were gone.  Something had to be done.

There’s now a whole region of the internet dedicated to kale recipes.  Some, particularly those that dowse the kale with some type of sugar, or make it a small part of a larger dish featuring shrimp sound like they could work, but others seem to have been posted by former coop-chefs’ with little idea what to do.  Few call for cooking the kale, and many require special treatment.  For instance, before mixing a lemon-kale salad with Parmesan (sounds pretty good, except the kale), you are invited to gently (oh so gently) massage the kale; I assume to relieve any stress it might be feeling, and loosen knots in the crinkled leaves that could lead to the eater needing some sort of temporomandibular joint disorder therapy.

Another common preparation is the “kale chip”.  These are popping up in organic food aisles at alarming prices.  $6.00 for 3 ounces of wannabe nori?  I can’t get behind that, no matter how well dredged it is in nutritional yeast flakes or totally organic orange cheese powder.  One online recipe proclaims it “great for parties and a good conversation starter”.  Woe on me if I ever hold a party where the chemistry is so low that I need a cruciferous vegetable to get things going, but the reviews suggest that for many these chips are a revelation, trumping even pancakes in a can, or the invention of the sliced apple.  People reported calling all their friends, fooling their children (how? how could you fool a child into thinking this was anything but a leaf with salt?), and repairing their relationship with their husbands, all of whom professed doubt these would be as good as Lays (who still buys Lays?  Please let me introduce you to a kettle chip), but were filled with new found admiration for their wives, and for our nations’ hardworking kale farmers.

When I announced to my family via our daily email that I would be making kale chips, my mother wrote “Kale chips.  Yum!”.  When I responded with my own doubts she amended “The yum for kale chips was, um, a question.” Honestly, that’s the response that makes the most sense to me, but still I decided to give it a shot.  After all, I had a lot of kale in the fridge, and I don’t know what happens when a superfood goes bad.  What if it was too super, too strong? I can only assume it would free itself from the crisper and then smother me in my sleep, before laying waste to Pittsburgh.

I cut the stems off the kale, rinsed the leaves, and then tore them down to chip-like size.  I dredged them in olive oil, a little pink Himalayan salt, and put them in the oven for 10-15 minutes before removing my handiwork.  To say the kale melts in your mouth would be a lie, but I ate one of the crinkled crisps, then another, and soon was piling handfuls of chips, as well as the limper, less well baked pieces into my mouth.  The kale chips were gone in under 10 minutes.  I made another batch, this one baked longer and with some garlic powder, and then another with garlic powder and rosemary.  So it’s with some chagrin given my previous, anti-kale stance, that I must admit that kale chips are delicious and addictive.  Partly, it’s a vehicle for whatever flavors you put on it while it bakes, but it also retains a reminder of kale’s signature strength.  Also, it’s lighter and crisper than a potato chip, with a seductive whisper, rather than crunch.  I have no pictures, because I ate the chips too fast, and in fact, I have no kale remaining in my crisper, and I’m considering the previously unthinkable: buying more kale.

In the most recent CSA pick up there was no kale, but instead several pounds of swiss chard.  If there is any leaf I’m less interested in than kale, it’s swiss chard.  Kale’s taste is strong, and for a leaf, has a certain meatiness to it.  But swiss chard tastes like sweet dirt. tossed in a roux with a little cream and nutmeg, this earthiness finds its voice, but now I wonder whether I can save myself by making chips.  “Chard chips”, despite the alliteration, doesn’t sound that great, in part because it could be confused with "charred chips", which I don't recommend, but maybe it could work.  Some how I’ve got to answer the question “What am I going to do with all this swiss chard?”.