Caldo verde, anyone?

This week our local SuperU is having its annual (or semi-annual?) Portuguese days. Products imported from Portugal are featured, including sausages, hams, beans (black-eyed peas, pinto beans, and black beans, as well as — here's the kicker — collard greens. I went to the store yesterday and bought out the few packages of collards they had on display. They were frozen greens cut into julienne (tiny shreds). I bought five of packages — about a kilogram in all.

I've never seen collard greens prepared and sold this way. I'm looking forward to trying them. I think I'll use some of them in recipes that call for spinach. We'll see what that's like. Apparently, people in Portugal use julienned collard greens in a soup that's called Caldo verde ("green soup or chowder), which also includes potatoes.

You might not know that France, at least central France, has a large Portuguese population. Collard greens are a variety of cabbage that is enjoyed by the Portuguese as well as by Americans, especially in the southern states. Collards are called by various names in France, where they are not widely available. Some of the names are chou cavalier, chou perpétuel, and chou fourrager. They are very similar to kale. By the way, I haven't been seeing as many vendors in local markets selling kale as I used to see, say five or six years ago. That's too bad.