According to trade magazine the Grocer, kale is the "new star" of the brassica family. Sales were up by 40% in the past year, with 3,048 tonnes shifted in the 12 months to February, when its core season ends.
Data analysts Kantor Worldpanel, who conducted the study, don't make the link between celebrities and our new-found fondness for this powerful leaf. But thanks to its high-profile supporters – including Gwyneth Paltrow (whose website Goop features recipes for kale juice and kale chips), Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver – some of it may even have been eaten, rather than left at the back of the veg drawer.
Kale, which is a member of the cabbage family, comes either plain or curly and is impressively hardy. It is easy to grow and almost obscenely healthy, packed with beta carotene, folate and vitamin C, low in fat and high in fibre. It's one of the richest vegetable sources of calcium, and contains iron, magnesium and potassium.
Some people are even suggesting that it's the new beef. Way to spoil the fun. Overselling the merits of any ingredient – or, indeed, promoting it as an alternative to something different and nicer, such as a steak – can have long-lasting negative side-effects. The superfood hat is an uncomfortable one to wear.
Still, one cook's passion for kale is infectious. Trine Hahnemann, known by some as the Danish Delia, fell for the vegetable five years ago. "Kale is served in Denmark with a heavy white sauce, which I don't like," she says. "Other cooks said no, there's nothing else you can do with it. Then I tried sautéing it to put with pasta, because garlic and kale is very nice, making pesto with it, and using it where I would usually use parsley or rocket. I discovered that it works. I kind of became obsessed with it. I love that clean, green taste."
Kale salads with walnut and apple or pomegranate and lime are among Hahnemann's favourites. Curly kale's ruffles and frills also appeal to her aesthetic sense. "I think I should have a ballgown made from kale leaves," she says.
However you dress it up, kale is in fashion: what do you do with it?
