Reason? No Reason: On Kale

I have heard some folks like the stuff, for instance a sister swears by kale chips.

You know, when I was a kid, there was no kale. Didn’t exist. Never heard of it. You had lettuce. Iceberg. Maybe romaine if your family was fancy. But kale? No. Kale was what cows ate, or what they swept off the sidewalk in front of a vegetable truck.

Then one day—boom!—it’s everywhere. Shows up like a rash. You go out to eat, there it is. On the menu. In the salad. On the plate. Under the chicken. Under the fish. Under everything. Kale's become the universal mattress of modern cuisine. Every dish has to lie down on it before it can be served.

And people say, “Oh, but it’s good for you!” You know what else is good for you? Misery. Builds character. Doesn't mean I want it for lunch. Kale tastes like something you'd scrape off the bottom of a lawn mower. It’s bitter. It’s rubbery. You gotta massage it to make it edible. Massage your vegetables? That’s not food—that’s a relationship.

They say it’s a “superfood.” Superfood? That’s marketing talk for “you’re not gonna like it, but we’re putting it in everything anyway.” Smoothies, chips, pizza crust. They’ll sneak it into your breakfast cereal if you don’t watch out. I'm telling you, kale's like that one guy who shows up uninvited and just stays. You didn’t ask for him. Nobody likes him. But now he’s part of the group.

I’m hoping this kale thing fades out. Goes the way of bell bottoms and pet rocks. But I got a bad feeling. Trends die, yeah—but they don’t always stay dead. They go underground. Then some jackass with a blog digs them up and calls it a “comeback.”

So now we’ve got kale. Forever. It’s like herpes. You might not see it for a while, but it's never really gone.

Thank you and good night.