Berza
Brassica oleracea var. viridis L.- collard greens. Berza (also berces) is the most-loved leafy green vegetable in Asturias. An essential ingredient in pote, this garden staple is one of the oldest known vegetables in Asturias. Add to that, as someone who moved to Asturias from the southern United States, it was comforting to discover that collard greens are as popular in Asturias as in Appalachia. Walking around villages here, seeing that much like home there are greens in every garden, made the place seem less foreign.
Cabbage, kale, broccoli, and cauliflower are all forms of a single polymorphic species, Brassica oleracea. Berza, or collard, is the closest extant variety to the primitive cultivated cabbage of middle ages Europe. The tight headed cabbages we have today were developed during the Renaissance.[1]
For those who might not know, "greens" in hillbilly parlance means any cabbage where the leaves don't make a compact head. They are the cabbage version of leaf lettuce (vs. head lettuce). Where I am from, we cook and serve greens in a quantity known as "a mess". A mess of greens is the quantity necessary to feed everyone coming to supper. That quantity will vary, of course, based on the size of your family. It is not uncommon to measure uncooked greens by the sackful. A sack being a grocery store bag. One sack should feed three or four people.
But I digress. We are discussing berza, not collards, even if for Linnaeus they are the same. So, we are going to bypass all of the fascinating history of how cooking collards fused European indigenous proto-cabbages to west African cooking traditions. For the low-down on that, I refer you to the indefatigable Jessica B. Harris, writing for the exemplary Gravy.
Berza History
Berza or its predecessor has grown in Asia since at least the late Bronze Age.[2] It is known in the eastern Mediterranean by the time of Theophrastus.[3] Through the Hellenistic period, at least, no distinction is made between collards and kale. Indeed, collards are a subtype of the acephela variety, and the modern collard greens had yet to become a distinct cultivar.[4]
The English settlers in America brought this primitive collard with them. Then called "colewort", it later morphed into the word collard. "Wort" was the old English term for a plant of any kid, and "Cole" came from the Latin caulus - 'stem' or 'cabbage'.[5]
However, there is a serious lack of sources concerning Asturian food until relatively recently. A variety of reasons, from the lack of Visigothic texts, and a general disinterest in the food of the peasants, of which all of Asturias essentially was until industrialization. There is some recent work using stable isotopes to determine a medieval Asturian food web.[6]
In wider Spain, we can find pucheros and potes attested from at least 1520 that contained what would have been indistinguishable from modern berza/collards.[7] From these, we can infer that pote made with berza would have existed in Asturias long before written records of Asturian foodways.
Berza in Asturian Cooking
Asturian cooking, or at least its traditional component, is very recipe driven. Each ingredient has its place in the repertoire, and it rarely ventures outside those dishes. Primarily it shows up in soups. It plays a supporting role to beans in these dishes. Pote Asturiano is the most famous. In neighboring León, you can find a version of this soup made with the addition of carrots and leeks. In addition, it is sometimes used in Asturias paired with garbanzo beans.
Berza is somewhat common in baking in Asturias as well. In place of a clay or metal dish, whole collard leaves are often used when baking breads such as panchon or boroñu.
I continue to make them primarily the way I grew up - slowly simmered with smoked ham hocks and dressed with peppery vinegar. However, I am branching out, and fusing the two cuisines together as I go.
Recipes
The following recipes are available using Berza:
- ↑ Davidson, Alan, et al. The Oxford Companion to Food. 3rd ed., 2019. Open WorldCat, pp 1312, 10.1093/acref/9780199677337.001.0001.
- ↑ Toussaint-Samat, Maguelonne. A History of Food. pp 622, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
- ↑ Katz, Solomon H., and William Woys Weaver. Encyclopedia of Food and Culture Volume 2: Food Production to Nuts. pp 284. Charles Scribner’s Sons : Thomson Gale, 2003.
- ↑ Pelc, Sandra E., et al. “Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Collard Landraces and Their Relationship to Other Brassica Oleracea Crops.” The Plant Genome, vol. 8, no. 3, 2015, p. 8. plantgenome2015.04.0023. Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10/gm77j6.
- ↑ Lewis, Charlton T., and Charles Short. “Caulis.” A Latin Dictionary. Founded on Andrews’ Edition of Freund’s Latin Dictionary. Revised, Enlarged, and in Great Part Rewritten By., 1st ed., Clarendon Press, 1879, https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Dcaulis.
- ↑ MacKinnon, Amy T., et al. “Exploring Diet and Status in the Medieval and Modern Periods of Asturias, Spain, Using Stable Isotopes from Bone Collagen.” Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, vol. 11, no. 8, Aug. 2019, pp. 3837–55. Springer Link, https://doi.org/10/gm794n.
- ↑ Herrera, Gabriel Alonso de. Obra de agricultura. 3rd ed., A.G. de Brocar, 1520. pp 36. Google Books, https://books.google.es/books?id=eirNvfkub0IC.
