LuAnna  

Welcome to the Crop Stories Podcast, where we bring the pages of the Utopian Seed Project's Crop Stories publication to life. Based here in the mountains of Western North Carolina, we're on a mission to strengthen our food system through the power of agro biodiversity and the relationships that sustain it. Our Crop Stories Program helps achieve these goals by connecting people to specific crops and their stories. If you believe in a more resilient, storyful future, consider supporting us as a monthly donor. You'll find the details in the show notes, and again, welcome to the Crop Stories Podcast. I'm LuAnna, and I'm so glad you're here.

LuAnna  

Hey, y'all, thanks for joining in to listen to our second Crop Stories Podcast episode hosted by me, LuAnna Nesbitt. Again, this podcast season will act kind of as our audio companion to Utopian Seed Project’s Crop Stories Collards publication, and still features our wonderful co-host and collard expert Ira Wallace. How are you doing, Miss Ira, how are the gardens looking for y'all at Acorn now that it's May and Spring is in flux?

Ira  

Well, it's nice. We had some good rain, and things seemed to double in size overnight.

LuAnna  

That they do. Yeah, I feel like all of a sudden everything is happening. And I don't know, I always get this new Spring, like passion for life in general, but it just feels really nice to have leaves on trees and plants in the field. How are your collards looking?

Ira  

They're small because we were quite busy earlier, and the spring collards aren't really anything except for eating, a lot of insect pressure. So we try to have July not have any brassicas above ground. And so we'll just have a small crop of spring eating collards. And we just finished our winter over ones, so we shall see.

LuAnna  

Well, thanks for the collard update. Yeah, ours are, our collard seed crop for this spring is it's looking a little it's looking good, but it was a little sad because the deer have been really intense this past winter. Well, today we're going to be focusing on Dr Mehmet Oztan's piece titled Grief and Growing Turkish Collards, An Immigrant Seed Saver's Story of Cultivating Connection. And I'm really excited to debrief this one with you, Ira, and hear some of your thoughts on the themes at hand. I feel like it brings up a lot of things around immigration and sense of place that feel really relevant in the current state of the world. So should we get started? Yes, absolutely.

Mehmet  

Grief and Growing, An Immigrant Seed Keeper's Story of Cultivating Connection, by Dr Mehmet Oztan. When I think of Trabzon, I always think of my father. When I think of Trabzon, I think of collards. My father was born in this Turkish town on the coast of the Black Sea. In 1972 as a forestry professor, he returned to his home region, the Karalahana. The Turkish term for collard greens, had been celebrated for 1000s of years. The word lahana in Turkish comes from the Greek word lahano and means vegetable. Kara is dark. Karalahana leaves and stems are used in a variety of phase from pickling or stuffing to soup in Trabzon. In 1986, my family moved to the Turkish capital Ankara from Trabzon. I was only six years old when we left. Yet some of my most vivid childhood memories involved the food I had there, particularly fresh anchovies and huge, ground Trabzon bread with butter from cows that graze the region's Highlands. However, despite Karalahana's significance in the regional kitchen, my mother wouldn't cook Trabzon's two staple meals, collard soup and stuffed collards, perhaps because she isn't from the region, and she found the dishes enhanced with lamb fat to be too heavy for her palate. My father didn't ask her to fix his regional delicacies, but showed his dedication to his birthplace in other ways. My father dedicated almost 30 years of his professional life to Trabzon, the blacks region and their people. As an educator, He taught his students how to connect respectfully with nature and preserve the breathtaking forests of the region. He died in his sleep from a heart attack in 2003 working on a landscape project and far away from us. I'm still very angry and frustrated for not having a final conversation with him before he left this world. When I became a seed keeper after I came to the United States as a graduate student in 2006, I realized how my father's relations with trees, flowers and people influenced how I steward the seeds of my homeland. I was living in Tampa, Florida at the time, and I didn't, still don't, have access to Trabzon's, traditional bread or to fresh anchovies. But soon after my arrival, I found out that collards are culturally important for black people in the US South. When my parents in law from Monroe, Louisiana, throw a party for me and my partner in 2011 to celebrate our marriage, I was amazed to find out that the plant thrives in the region, just as it does in the different climate of the Black Sea region of Turkey. Not only that, corn bread and collards were paired in the south the same way they are in Trabzon. I began thinking about how seeds and fruit can connect people and places of different cultures 1000s of miles from each other. That motivated me to grow the seed when I visited Turkey last November with my mother and brother, I went to the Ankara restaurant zigana, which specializes in the Black Sea region's traditional food. I specifically ordered collard soup and stuffed collards. I marveled again at the fascinating similarities between food traditions of the Black Sea region and US South. Some ingredients native to the western hemisphere are used in dishes in both locations. The soup has barbunya Bean like the Pinto, kolkota, hominy corn, sweet red pepper, bulb onions, tomato paste and chopped collard greens. Individual collard leaves are filled with ground veal or beef, a combination of hominy corn and bulgur or rice cooked in bone broth and butter and served with yogurt on top. Beans, corn, peppers and tomatoes were only introduced to Turkey a few 100 years ago through settler colonialism and trade, but the regional cuisine of the Black Sea region, like in other places, with old food traditions, quickly adapted to these new ingredients. I wasn't very familiar with either Karalahana dish I had at zigana, which seems contrary to how strongly I feel this plant connects me to my father. Living in the United States, very far from my homeland, hasn't been easy. If you don't find ways to cope, being an immigrant may mean being forgotten by your own people and the place that gives you your whole identity when you lose touch with them. When you are away from your homeland, people you know die, language and culture transform, friends get married, your family ages and you can easily become a stranger to everyone. My seed keeping work in which I propagate and distribute mostly Turkey seeds that are rarely commercially available there or in the United States, is an effort to rebuild biodiversity. But I also have selfish reasons to be a seed keeper, to lessen my distance to my people, land, culture and memories. Seeds help me keep my proximity to all the things I don't want to forget through stories, flavors and recipes. Since my partner and I co founded our Seed Company, Two Seeds in a Pod in 2013 I have introduced more than 100 seed varieties of my homeland to the commercial seed market. However, despite all my interest in saving seeds from Trabzon's Karalahana, in almost 10 years, we have never been able to offer them in our catalog, either when we were in Florida or after we moved to West Virginia. Bad timing, farmers fatigue, neglected seedlings, high humidity at the time of seed maturity, something always kept me from fulfilling my role as a seed saver. I had to repeatedly source the seed from a gardener friend who lived in Istanbul until two years ago. I've often wondered, as I introduced scores of Turkish grown eggplant, okra and other vegetables, whether my failure in saving enough seeds from my crops sustained my successive plantings is deeply rooted in my emotions, particularly my frustrations about my father's sudden death and my desperation to reconnect with the plant and place I strongly associate with him. In 2022, almost a year after we built our greenhouse on our farm in Reidsville, West Virginia, I finally have a small but vigorous crop of Trabzon's Karalahana growing inside the greenhouse. It successfully weathered winter's low temperatures without heavy frost damage, a process that will stimulate spring flowering and summer seed production. I will never know whether my father liked Karalahana, ate it at restaurants, or if his mother ever cooked it at their home. We never ate it together. What I do know is that after almost a decade of struggle, growing seeds of this resilient vegetable, season after season, keeps my memories with my father alive. I can only hope that the growing will ease my grief. Sometimes the thing you most want is so out of reach.

LuAnna  

I adore that piece. I think it says so much in such like a, it's not necessarily a simple story, but it just feels so like familiar, probably for a lot of people, whether it's just from moving out of your home state, or whether it's, you know, leaving your home country. And I can't imagine what that feels like. But yeah, I'm kind of curious what your reflections are, Miss Ira about hearing this and yeah, just how you've kind of observed similar instances within families and communities of your own. Yeah. How are you feeling after listening to this piece?

Ira  

It made me think back to my grandmother, and, you know, sharing the garden with her, and whenever we have fresh young collards coming up in the fall. It's like she's standing behind my shoulder, looking. When he mentioned, you know, the stuffed collards, when I was young and my dad was stationed in the military in Fayetteville, North Carolina, near Robeson County, where the Lumbee tribes are, and we would go to this collard san, collard sandwich event every year. And whenever I have something like that, it just takes me back to that time where something so simple and fresh everybody was anticipating and enjoying together.

LuAnna  

Yeah, I love how food I think that's why everyone you know has their own connection to food. But I think why a lot of people have such strong connections to food is because it does take you back to your tradition, your family, or whatever it is, just sweet memories for a lot of us. I had the opportunity to get to try the collard sandwich, and it was just interesting, like it was phenomenal, delicious, loved it, but it's crazy to get to experience a food that you grew up eating in such a different way. And in Mehmet's piece, I feel like he's calling to that, like, you know, moving here and like, getting to experience collard, but still, I feel like you always have that I don't know the the connection to the way you ate it growing up, despite maybe other ways being more whatever glamorous or correct whatever way you ate it growing up, is, feels the most connected to you. Well, thanks for sharing that. Another question I had for you was around just this idea of like cultural heritage and connection to place. Mehmet sees his seed work, seed saving work as a way to kind of lessen his distance from his homeland. I think a lot of us feel that when we don't live in our in our original homes. So this feels, I don't know, in our current world, extremely relevant. And this idea of seed work giving people a place, a home, when maybe they aren't in that space, and I'm just curious how you how you see that cultivation and you know, sharing of specific plants and foods kind of act as this bridge to our cultural heritage and identities, especially for those who are immigrants or refugees, like, how? Yeah, how do you see this cultivation being a bridge for people? And maybe you could share about your own experiences with it. I don't know, but yeah, just something I'm thinking about.

Ira  

Well, I came into the seed saving movement through the seed savers exchange in the 80s and 90s, and a lot of the people who were donating seeds to the collection were immigrants from Europe and their children, but as we came into the late 90s and moving into the 2000s immigrants from all over the world who had resettled here started becoming a part of the seed saving movement and bringing more of a diversity of seed and in some cases, people I work with would reach out to the USDA seed bank for seeds that have been brought to this country from their country where it was no longer as readily available because of war and things like that. And, for example, various greens from Vietnam, yeah, I and I later got back into meeting people who were doing work about how the Southern cuisine evolved, and that goes way back to the slave trade, and how that the details of that history were interrupted by slavery, but the foods, you know, in the low country, in the Sea Island, take Southern Peas and sort of reinterpret how collards got drilled into that because these enslaved people were used to dark leafy greens. I like the part where Mehmet talks, you know, about the history of the word, and this is literally dark greens. And maybe that's why that they became so important for the diet of African American people, both during the times of slavery and as they became free and moved about the country, and you can just see that migration of the collards and the dishes from them following the migrations of people.

LuAnna  

And one other question or thought I had was like in the essay Mehmet touches on this introduction of new world crops like beans and corn and peppers and tomatoes to Turkish cuisine. And I'm just curious like, how this integration of new ingredients impacts but also transforms long standing like culinary traditions and dishes that people carry forward. And are there similar examples that you could share regarding collard greens in the American South or other crops? Yeah, just curious about this thought of taking a long standing dish that's very important to a tradition and kind of integrating it with new ingredients and things like that.

Ira  

Well, beans and Southern Peas and peanuts kind of are like this. And part of the part of the south where I grew up. My grandmother grew up in northern Florida, up near Tallahassee in little town called Perry. And my great grandmother had grown up in the southern parts of Georgia, and they mostly grew Southern Peas, and as people now are reclaiming and calling them African peas that had come there and but they also met with, you know, I live near Igor city, which is the Spanish influence part of Florida, as opposed to Spanish people coming from Mexico, uh and all kinds of black beans were the, you know, beans of my childhood. And we would always have some kind of soup that is leftover beans. And when collards were in season, they would be one of the greens in them. But we also had fresh corn and hominy. Yeah, that was kind of special. I kind of get out of the habit of making hominy, but I've been thinking about for this bipoc gathering that we're having here to get together with my friend Amy Rose, and she has her native American way of making hominies. And we could have a hominy bar.

LuAnna  

That sounds amazing, and now I'm just hooked on this hominy idea. And what could you tell me, yeah, your traditional method of making it like, what is your recipe that you learned growing up in Florida? Like, what is it? I want to know?

Ira  

Well, we did them with my grandmother. Would make ashes and so the corn and, and that. And it worked pretty good. And it gave a special taste to it too. I think why I don't do it so much is, you know, you have to get wood and dry it out and, um, try it out and make the ashes, and she liked to use a little seed and kind of have them be the same size and get the big pieces out. And, you know, she passed away when I went to high school, so I sort of when I was at college, had to reinvent how I could do it, because I never really got the measurements and stuff, because she eyeballed it.

LuAnna  

Was there specific wood or type of tree that was used for, for the ash, or was it kind of just whatever you had on hand?

Ira  

I think it was what we had on hand, you know, and I, and I haven't, actually, you know, research, that wasn't so committed to doing doing it from wood. But since I met Amy Rose, and she likes to make it her traditional way, and she uses woods. Fast growing trees are often used, but maybe I will have to go to one of her classes and actually take the notes.

LuAnna  

That's very cool. I love hearing, I don't know, it's so funny how we got on this trail of hominy. You know, like these stories just bring up so much for people. So I'm excited to see what other people think about when listening to this. And I think that's a big reason we're doing this is hearing the voice and hearing someone share their story in that way is just so much different than reading it. Um, yeah. And the story, I don't know, there's a lot of like, emotive things happening in it. You sharing about your grandmother and, like, he kind of mentions the various use of the Karalahana seeds kind of tied to this emotional state for him. And I'm curious about, how can the act of you. Working with plants, saving seeds kind of be a form of therapy or emotional processing, yeah. How? What are your reflections on that? And then, what are some ways that you've seen people find solace and connection through gardening or seed saving after experiencing such loss, such as like leaving your homeland, or being forced to leave your homeland, or death, or whatever it may be.

Ira  

Well, I see gardening as being therapeutic all sorts of ways, because we get a lot of requests for donation seeds. And what's so interesting about it is, you know, there are veterans groups where people are using farming and gardening as a way to work out trauma from, you know, war torn places and but you have people who have this abilities, who are using working in the garden as a way to circumvent those and go and be something beyond defined by that limiting condition. You know, growing food and then cooking it and sharing it is another way to also overcome being separated by languages we have visited, like Habitat for humanity and the people there. And in addition to, you know, being sort of this project that's building homes, it comes, you know, out of a community that was welcoming to refugees of different waves of them through since the 50s and and with all of that is sharing the food and food traditions that people bring with them.

LuAnna  

Yeah, I think the just hearing like the various uses of Karalahana for Mehmet from like, pickling to soup, it was cool to see right, like, how this emotive state, this raw connection to food, can be carried through such varied recipes, varied things, whether it's just like a pickle or like a very intensive process of like, you know, making this hominy and like having specific ash, and it's cool to see that tradition and culture can be carried through such little things. I'm just curious, what are some unspoken ways that people who might not have, like, explicit connection to their heritage and traditions be able to connect with these traditions from their family, like, what are some little niche things that you've seen people kind of cling on to that maybe aren't as explicit?

Ira  

Understanding about the Appalachian roots that people in the mountain South love their pole beans and families hold dear to a particular October bean or greasy beans. And I think that is kind of a special thing, because you just don't have the fresh tenderness that you get with those beans that begin to fill and they still maintain tenderness, even when the beans are forming inside of them, when you think they'd be tough, and people still maintain traditions with the means of stringing them and making leather bridges, even though they're no longer necessary for survival, so that you can have that grandma soup in the winter.

LuAnna  

Yeah, and I like that. It's a crop that, you know, we have this pole bean, for example, that you're using. It's a specific variety, like, that's what the tradition is. And like, the process of canning it or whatever. But it's not necessarily the way you cook it afterwards soup or just like in a pot or whatever it is, fresh or canned or but it's more of the gardening and having this specific variety, and it needs to have a string, because that makes it more tender.

Ira  

Right? And you know, there's all of those sweet onions, like the vidalia ones, that you really can only grow in certain kind of soils and climates, and people go out of their way to start them in the fall and try to harvest them just at the right time, and they aren't even keepers. So you have to, you know, a lot fresh and late spring and early summer. And now that's something that is extra good with your collards too.

LuAnna  

Yeah, bringing it back to a place of collards, Mehmet describes this as being celebrated for like, 1000s of years in the Black Sea region. And I'm just curious, you know, to end our conversation today, like, what makes collard greens such a resilient and enduring food across such different climates and cultures. And then, in your experience, like, what are the most fun or versatile ways to kind of prepare collard greens that you've seen, or different cooking methods that kind of impact their flavors and such.

Ira  

Well there are two things that I kind of like that are recipes that I learned more as an adult because I grew up with the kind of long, slow cook collards, but I met a friend from Brazil in my young adulthood, and they introduced me to their style of Brazilian beans with garlic. You take cloves and peel them and make them really fine, and then you're with your collard why they kind of remind me of growing up is I grew up in the cigar making part of Florida, and this idea of stacking the collards and rolling them tight like you would a cigar and cutting them very thin so they can cook in like, you know, 10 minutes or so in a frying pan with that garlic that you just could put in until it's just it's turning golden, and sprinkle a little salt on it, and you're really good. And you can, you know, use olive oil or some kind of animal fat if you have because when I grew up, my grandmother would save all of the fat and use it to season greens and stuff like that. And then the other thing that I had and didn't have so much growing up is soups and stews that have peanuts or peanut butter as a part of it, one of those soups with a bunch of finely top collards makes an excellent lunch leftover soup.

LuAnna  

Yeah, I likewise, grew up with the slow cooked collards, and I've, one thing I've been doing is my friend showed me how she made hers with coconut milk. And so good, just coconut collards, and they're so easy, you know, like, saute some onions, add your collards, put it in with some little bit of soy sauce and vinegar, and then add your coconut milk, and it's just so good. But I still love my slow cooked collards too.

Ira  

When I was in Jamaica, they use coconut milk for a lot of things, you know. And it's not exactly what I had thought of is what that underlying special flavor and Jamaican food was, and they it's different, different times fresh. You know, coconut water from the coconuts when they had been fresh cut, and then thicker stuff that you put away for using later.

LuAnna  

Well, Miss Ira. I you know, to wrap up, you could share a little bit about what makes collard greens so resilient and enduring, but it sounds like we've kind of touched on a lot of those themes. But if there's anything else you want to share about, yeah, Mehmet's journey of collards back in his homeland and here and about what makes it, what makes collards so resilient across these different cultures?

Ira  

Well, you know, the collards tendency to be able to be grown in 10 months is, I mean, it can be grown in 12 months. It's just a little challenging in the southeast in the dark days of summer. But I think that that possibility of starting them most of the months of the year and being able, in a very short time, have greens that you can eat, and then having them be able to be wintered over in our climate so that it could give fresh greens all winter is one of the things that has made a special, special things and and the southeastern cuisine, and it grows in not very good soil, too. So I find that endearing.

LuAnna  

Yeah, collards, they're survivors, and I feel like they're always accompanied with such strong people too. They mirror each other in that way. Well, I've had a lot of fun with you today. Miss Ira. This has been a really interesting and cool conversation we've had. I feel like I have a lot to think about regarding my own ancestry and immigration and connection to food, and I'm sure others will too. So thanks so much for sharing your important insights and your own connection to collards in that way.

Ira  

Well, thanks for having me. I am enjoying going back and reflecting on the color journals and the many lenses through which people grow and eat and share collards.

LuAnna  

Yeah, I'm excited to keep doing this with you. So join us next episode, y'all. Miss Ira and I will be diving into another excerpt from the collards magazine and getting in deeper with another another story. 

LuAnna  

Thanks for spending some time with us and the crops we love, every seed we save and every story we tell helps shape our food system into something deeper and more resilient. If today's episode sparked a bit of curiosity, please share it with a friend or fellow gardener, and if you're able, head to our show notes to become a monthly supporter via our crop stories, donation link. Your contributions help keep this project going. Thank you, and until next time you.