Christy was doing her own kale crusading in Spain since 2012. Since we’ve joined forces, she wants to share a few of her stories from her earlier days in Murcia after a three-month search for kale in 2012.
Greetings from La Huerta!
It is (pretty) official. Kale is not grown in Spain. I wrote to Janet Mandel, a transplanted Spanish cookbook author with 30 years of expat living under her belt and she grows her own as the only (rare) time she has seen it in a market it was imported. Her suggestion is that I do the same or convince a local farmer to try to grow some. Time to bone up on farmer talk…or maybe Mari at the Multiprecio can hook me up with someone.
And though sad to confirm the non-existence of kale, in ferreting this information out I made a pretty good compensatory discovery — turnip greens / rapini (same family, who knew) can be found in Galicia, under the name of grelos. And in looking for more on grelos I found another blog called Simple Spanish Food which looks really nice and may warrant further investigation (very healthy with lots of veg), along with a road trip to Galicia to find the real thing. Stay tuned. -Christy
Hello there! I am currently living in Spain and good news is there actually IS one place growing kale in Spain, which is where I buy mine. Here is the website of the place: http://www.agriculturavedicamaharishi.org/
Hope it’s helpful!