by Robin Mosley, Communications and Development Coordinator
Advocating for good food that is native to a community is at the heart of Greens on Red, an event that happens every year (most recently on March 17) and is hosted by We Grow Together, a partnership of the Slow Food North Louisiana chapter, the LSU AgCenter, and the Red River Coalition of Community Gardeners. What makes Greens on Red so important to North Louisiana is the history of the food. Often, when people think of Louisiana, they think of delicious dishes such as gumbo, jambalaya and more — signature foods of the Creole-rooted southern part of the Louisiana Bayou. But at its core, North Louisiana has its own cuisine that’s often misunderstood by outsiders; sometimes North Louisianans themselves aren’t aware of its history.
What North Louisiana is known for is an abundance of greens, which, as Angie White, chair of Slow Food North Louisiana, said, “grow very, very well here.”
Greens are so ingrained in North Louisiana that “this is just an area where a pot of greens on the stove is something that you probably saw your whole life growing up. Everyone’s grandma,” Angie said.
While there’s certainly nothing wrong with eating delicious greens the way many Southerners grew up, there’s so much more that can be done with them. This is what Angie says Greens on Red is all about. Not only do visitors learn about how well greens grow, but this event also teaches younger generations that “you don’t have to be scared of it because it’s a green vegetable,” Angie said.
Among this free, family-friendly and diverse crowd, there were people from all walks of life, racially, socioeconomically, etc. These demographics just highlight the reach and appeal it has to so many people. With this in mind, there were many opportunities for the community to join in the festivities. One of the ways people celebrated greens was as “champions” for specific greens by preparing a recipe with their green and offering samples, or even dressing up as their green. Others wrote poetry. There was even a bike that people could ride that would power a smoothie machine.
Lauren Jones, executive director at Shreveport Green, participated in the most recent edition of Greens on Red. As a booth participant, she dressed up as a collard (and took a photo with Angie) while also getting people interested in the greens they’re growing. With the greens on her table and a mission of growing food regeneratively, education was always the goal during this event.
For example, Shreveport Green’s Shanetta Brown made Callaloo, a stew made with greens. This dish this year celebrated a special crop of greens. “Kids loved it. Oh! And something I didn’t mention. The greens that we cooked were from last year’s Plant a Seed kit and donated by Slow Food USA. So it was one of y’all’s greens from last year: Yellow Cabbage collards,” Lauren said.
Similar to Lauren, Angie created a well-known herbaceous dish, gumbo z’herbes, a traditional Lenten gumbo out of South Louisiana. This dish, according to Angie, “is supposed to be eaten with no meat, although if you look up a lot of recipes today, a lot of them have pork, but we make ours vegan.” This choice, just like Shreveport Green’s, was intended to let the vegetables speak for themselves without meat.
“The lore around Z’herbes is that you have to have an odd number of greens. We had 15 for this last event,” Angie said. Angie’s booth also gave away heirloom seeds of root vegetables in connection with this year’s Plant a Seed campaign from Slow Food USA.
Thinking back on the positive experience, Angie had this to say about the work everyone did and the reactions of people. “I’m always impressed at how people who have clearly never eaten greens will come up and they’ll kind of ask me about what I have, and I’ll ask if they want to try it, and they’re not really sure.” She continued, “Eventually, I can talk them into it, because I’m just good at that. That’s the superpower I have. I can make people eat things they think they don’t want to, and then eventually they’ll come back and they’ll ask for another.”
You’ve made greens fun to eat. I lived in south Louisiana for two years and had the biggest, best vegetable garden ever. The water table is only a foot or so from the surface and there is abundant rain and humidity. It was like having a hydroponic garden.