What the potlikker broth holds

The first time I understood potlikker, I was not in a kitchen. I was at the table during the winter holidays, slurping the broth from a bowl of my mother’s collard greens cooked with smoked turkey. I did not know what it was called. I just knew it was the best part. The greens were good, but that liquid they left behind… smoky, rich, alive, that was the thing I kept going back for. I would tip the bowl. I would ask for more. I did not have language for what I was tasting. I just knew it mattered.

Greens carry everything. They are nostalgic. They are ancestral. They are a superfood before anyone thought to call them that. They are healing and tradition and the dish that tells you somebody in that kitchen loved you enough to stand over a pot for hours. Every Black family I know has a greens recipe, and every one of them will tell you theirs is the best. That is not arrogance. That is because greens are not just food. They are memory. They are the story of who raised you and who raised them and what they carried across every kitchen they ever stood in.

I have been thinking about that a lot lately. About what gets held and what gets lost. About who does the holding.

I mentioned my Uncle Moe last month. Moe Burton. I said his story deserves its own telling, and I meant it. What I did not tell you is how much I am still uncovering. I have been sitting at my father’s feet, reading old articles, making phone calls, piecing together the life of a man whose legacy I am only now beginning to understand the full weight of. The more I learn, the more I realize how much of what I do every day is a continuation of what he started.

Moe was an organizer in this very corridor. He turned vacant lots into community gardens and grew those gardens into the Bryant-Central Co-op, a Black cooperative grocery store in a neighborhood that did not have one. He did not wait for someone else to solve the problem. He paid his workers when other co-ops used volunteers. He hired young people so they could learn skills and earn income at the same time. He understood that feeding people and employing people and organizing people were not separate acts. They were the same act. He was doing food justice, workforce development, and community wealth building decades before any of those terms existed. And the man he raised, my father, is the man who raised me.

On April 29th of this year, the Supreme Court gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Six to three. They ruled that proving your community’s voting power has been diluted is no longer enough. Now you have to prove intent. When I read that, I thought about Moe. He was fighting against this same system: organizing his community, exercising his rights, feeding his people. And that system kept finding ways to tear down what he built. Not always loudly. Sometimes quietly, through policy, through funding decisions, through the slow withdrawal of resources that makes it impossible to sustain what you have grown.

It is still finding ways. That is what I want you to sit with. The work Moe was doing, the work so many in our community have been doing and are doing right now, it is the same work. It has always been the same work. We build, and they tear down, and we build again. That is not defeat. That is the struggle itself. And the people who keep showing up, who keep planting and cooking and organizing and feeding, those are the people who hold the broth. They are the potlikker.

I did not know I was carrying Moe’s work forward until I started paying attention. I am running a kitchen in the same corridor where he organized. I am growing food on a farm across the river. I am teaching young people the same skills he believed in. That work and dignity belong together. That a community that feeds itself is a community with power. I did not plan that. But the pot remembers, even when we forget.

So make yourself a pot of greens this month. Cook them slow. Do not rush it. And when they are done, do not pour out the broth. Ladle it into a cup. Drink it slowly. Think about who taught you to cook, and who taught them, and what they were carrying when they did.

That is the potlikker. That is what everyone overlooks. That is the inheritance.

Greens formula Serves 4–6

This is a formula. You follow the structure, but you make it yours.

The greens: pick your green or mix, 3 bushels, stems removed, cut or torn into bite-size pieces, triple washed: collard greens (classic), mustard greens, turnip greens, kale, cabbage, or a combination.

The smoke (optional): smoked turkey tails or neck bones (traditional), smoked ham hock, or skip the meat entirely for a plant-based version. Your broth will still be rich.

The aromatics: one onion (diced), four to six garlic cloves (minced), two bay leaves, two pinches of oregano.

The base: two to three ounces grapeseed oil, two large tomatoes (diced), one tablespoon kosher salt, salt and pepper to taste.

The liquid: enough water to cover your greens. If using smoked meat, simmer it in the water for at least an hour first to build your broth.

The method: heat your oil. Sauté onions until soft. Add garlic until fragrant. Add tomatoes and cook down. Add your greens in batches, letting them wilt. Cover with your broth or water. Add bay leaves, oregano, salt, and pepper. Cover and cook low and slow until the greens are silky to desired tenderness (45–120+ minutes). Finish with three or more dashes of hot sauce and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Taste. Adjust.

Do not throw out the broth. Drink it from a cup if you want. That is potlikker.

My version: collard greens, smoked turkey, diced tomatoes, onion, garlic, bay leaf, oregano, hot sauce, and a drizzle of good olive oil to finish. But yours does not have to look like mine.

Sunflower greens salad Serves 8

Moe built something new out of what was already there. That is what this salad does. It takes the same greens your grandmother cooked and treats them differently. No heat. No pot. You massage the crema into the raw greens with your hands, and they soften into something silky without ever touching a stove. The sunflower seeds in the crema are nostalgic for me. I ate them by the handful as a kid. They grow here in Minnesota. Packed with nutrition, low allergen, and affordable. Old ingredients, new form. That is how we carry it forward.

The greens: one pound collard greens or broccoli greens, sliced thin in a chiffonade.

Sunflower seed crema: half a cup raw sunflower seeds (soaked overnight, or cover with boiling water and let sit 20 minutes, then drain). Blend with half a cup potlikker, one and a half tablespoons lemon juice, one tablespoon apple cider vinegar, one teaspoon salt, one teaspoon maple syrup, and one and a half teaspoons spicy chili crisp. Blend for two to three minutes until smooth and creamy.

The vegetables and garnish: one pound mixed sliced or shaved vegetables, such as bell peppers, grape tomatoes, purple onions, rhubarb, cucumber, carrots, radishes. A quarter cup sunflower seeds. A quarter cup pumpkin seeds. Salt and fresh cracked pepper.

The method: massage the crema into the chiffonade of greens until well coated. This is the step that changes everything. Your hands do what the heat would do. Toss with your vegetables and seeds. Season to taste. Serve.

My version: collard greens, sunflower seed crema with chili crisp, shaved carrots, grape tomatoes, purple onion, cucumber, and a handful of sunflower and pumpkin seeds. But yours does not have to look like mine.

What did your family’s greens recipe teach you? Write to me at chelleskitchenllc@gmail.com or visit www.healthyrootsinstitute.com.

Lachelle Cunningham is the founder of Healthy Roots Institute, owner of City Food Studio, and executive director of Frogtown Farm. She is a Bush Fellow, a practicing herbalist, and a chef who believes food is a vehicle for healing, memory, and power.