Collard Gleans

First, an admission: it's been a little while between posts. I've taken a break from food for a bit. Yes, Grandma, I'm still eating, just not thinking about it nonstop.

Picking up the fork again...This weekend I went gleaning, the practice of picking produce that would otherwise go unharvested and distributing it to hungry folks. It's always nice to get outside in a bucolic setting and actually do some good. To volunteer, see the good folks at Society of St. Andrew (SOSA) or use this America's Second Harvest site to find a local group.

OK, hang on, let me get down from my stump.

Anyway, we were gleaning collard greens in a field that looked something like this one. The collards belonged to a farmer who wasn't going to use them because, due to the vagaries of agrarian economics, the amount he'd spend on harvesting the greens would exceed their price.

Kind soul that he is, he called SOSA and that's how the Spoonstress and me found ourselves picking collards on a gray Saturday.

First, the things are huge. I'm not sure if this was a bumper crop or what, but the collards were the size of medicine balls. We peeled off all the yellowed leaves like the bottom one in this picture and then put the plant in giant clear plastic bags like the ones below. And no, I never carried two at once.

The bags were loaded onto a truck, then on to food pantries, homeless shelters and old folks homes in the area.

Here's the simple, astounding arithmetic: eight gleaners, two hours, 2,000 pounds of collards. Hope those hungry people are in the mood for collards.