I have nothing against kale.
But over the past few years, it has become a giant trend in restaurants, and I just don't understand why it's even a topic of conversation. I turned around and everything was kale. You'll hear people say that kale is their favorite thing — "Oh my god, it's my favorite. It's my favorite" — like it's special and unknown when it's just a f*king leaf. You go out to dinner with a whole group of people — "Oh my god, the kale salad. That sounds so good." Actually, it all sounds the same. It's all kale.
What's weird is that kale has been around for forever. It's a hearty, rustic, old timey vegetable. What's sort of new, I guess, is that it's more popular raw than it ever was — kale has traditionally been more of a cooked green. And there's nothing wrong with these raw dishes. What's mystifying is people's perception of kale. How they've latched onto it, forming a movement dedicated to a du jour salad, speaking about it as if it's this newfound hipster superfood like quinoa or goji berries.
Here in southern California we get some of the best produce in the world, all sorts of greens, which also make great salads, and yet for the moment, all anyone wants is kale. It used to be arugula, but now that's not as popular as it once was. Before that it was romaine hearts. Baby spinach might as well have never existed.
There's not much logic to it, but I get it: food trends are cyclical. Prisons used to serve lobster to inmates. Now it's revered as a luxury food. Today kale's a fancy thing. It sounds healthier than other vegetables — and sounds maybe a bit weird and exotic. It's inexpensive because it's incredibly easy to grow and can withstand different environments. It's meaty and filling. A couple of smart chefs must have looked at it and said, "It's cheap and it's good." And it took off. But tomorrow it might be, I don't know, curly parsley.
For now, restaurants feel like the need to have a kale salad on the menu to be relevant. Even when I go out with chefs they'll compare one kale salad to another — "Oh his kale salad is better than his kale salad!" It's unbelievable.
That said, I drank about 20 ounces of kale juice this morning, and I eat kale in some form everyday. It's packed with vitamin C.
This is The Spill, a new series on Eat Like a Man where chefs, food writers, restaurateurs, policy makers — anyone who has something vital, incendiary, or earth-shattering (or just kind of amusing) to say about the food world today — can write what's on their mind. If you work in the food industry and are interested in writing for The Spill, please send your ideas to spill@esquire.com.
Tune-in to Knife Fight on Tuesdays at 9pm EST/PST. (The new season premieres tonight!) Check here for listings.
Via Esquire
