Pot liquor
{{Short description|Liquid remaining after boiling greens}}
{{For|liquor made in a pot still|Pot still}}
{{Infobox food
| name = Pot liquor
| image = File:US Navy 081127-N-7571S-011 Culinary Specialist Seaman Freddie Green prepares collard greens for the crew's Thanksgiving dinner.jpg
| caption = Boiling collard greens
| alternate_name = potlikker, collard liquor
| country = United States
| region = Southern United States
| creator =
| course =
| type = Soup
| served =
| main_ingredient = Liquid from boiling greens (collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens); sometimes salt, smoked pork or smoked turkey
| variations =
| calories =
| other =
}}
Pot liquor, sometimes spelled potlikker or pot likker,{{cite book|last=Covey|first=Herbert C.|title=What the slaves ate: recollections of African American foods and foodways from the slave narratives|year=2009|publisher=Greenwood Press|location=Santa Barbara, CA|isbn=978-0-313-37497-5|pages=78|author2=Dwight Eisnach}} is the liquid that is left behind after boiling greens (collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens) or beans. It is sometimes seasoned with salt and pepper, smoked pork or smoked turkey. Pot liquor contains high amounts of essential vitamins and minerals including iron, vitamin A and vitamin C. Especially important is that it contains high amounts of vitamin K, which aids in blood clotting. Another term is collard liquor.
Background
Former governor and U.S. senator Zell Miller of Georgia wrote a defense of the traditional spelling "potlikker" in The New York Times.{{cite web |title=Pot Liquor or Potlikker? |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=940CE4DE133BF930A15751C0A964948260|work=The New York Times|access-date=9 April 2011|date=23 February 1982}}
Much earlier, in his autobiography, Every Man a King, governor and U.S. senator Huey Pierce Long, Jr., of Louisiana, defined "potlikker", a favorite of his country political supporters, as
{{blockquote|
... the juice that remains in a pot after greens or other vegetables are boiled with proper seasoning. The best seasoning is a piece of salt fat pork, commonly referred to as "dry salt meat" or "side meat". If a pot be partly filled with well-cleaned turnip greens and turnips (which should be cut up), with a half-pound piece of the salt pork and then with water and boiled until the greens and turnips are cooked reasonably tender, then the juice remaining in the pot is the delicious, invigorating, soul-and-body sustaining potlikker ... which should be taken as any other soup and the greens eaten as any other food...
Most people crumble cornpone (corn meal mixed with a little salt and water, made into a pattie and baked until it is hard) into the potlikker.Huey Pierce Long, Jr., Every Man a King: The Autobiography of Huey P. Long (New Orleans: National Book Club, Inc., 1933), pp. 200-201.}}
The practice of consuming potlikker was commonly employed by enslaved people in the United States to concentrate nutrients from vegetables.{{Cite book|last=Bower|first=Anne|title=African American Foodways Explorations of History & Culture|publisher=University of Illinois Press|year=2007|isbn=9780252031854|pages=48}}