Just had your vegetable box delivered? Seen those same familiar curly green leaves poking out? Yes, I’m afraid so. More curly kale, and you’ve still got last week’s to get rid of. It’s not a great time of year for homegrown veg, is it? Winter’s root crops are over, and the first flush of spring, with its promise of tender peas, asparagus and even – oh, what exotic joy – broccoli, is still months away. No wonder they call this the hungry gap.

One person you won’t find complaining, though, is Chris Molyneux, the brassica king of Lancashire. On his farm near Ormskirk he grows green kale, red kale, Russian kale, black kale – anything with a “k” in it, plus spring greens and Brussels sprouts.

To schoolchildren he must seem like the Antichrist, but as we tour his fields, the wind whipping in off the Irish Sea, his passion is infectious. “That’s cavolo nero, or black kale,” he says, pointing to a puckered leaved plant. “It’s got a lovely taste, with a bit of pepperiness to it, but you can see where the frost got to it the other night. That’s the Italians for you – not very hardy. And this,” he says, ripping leaves off another plant, “is red Russian. It doesn’t look so good on the stalk, but it’s the sweetest of the lot.”

He cooks kale at least once a week for the family, and even grows it in his back garden “for emergencies” – as if 130 acres on the farm isn’t enough. “It is just so good for you,” he says, munching on a leaf. “It’s got more vitamin C than oranges, a huge whack of fibre, plus, like all brassicas, it’s full of glucosinolates, which help to fight cancer. It really is a superfood. It will make you live for ever.”

The trouble is, no one in this country really seems to be listening. Most of Molyneux’s crop goes to Holland. “I’m not sure why they love it so much, but we send over 12-15 tonnes a week at this time of year. They use it in soups and particularly in stamppot, a national dish of mashed potato and kale, a bit like colcannon, which they serve with a big curly sausage.”

Of what he sells in this country, just 20 boxes a day go to Booths, the northern supermarket chain with a strong history of supporting local farmers and producers, “but my biggest market here is fishmongers, would you believe,” he says resignedly. “They use it instead of parsley to decorate their stalls because it holds up longer.

“It’s depressing because the quality is so good, but people just don’t seem to know what to do with it. Even hands on the farm will ask me how to cook it. I’m sure if they knew how, they’d eat it more often.”

His recommendation, and the way he gets his two young daughters to eat it, is to chop it up nice and small, stalks and all, blanche it in boiling water and then sweat it with plenty of butter. “You don’t want to brown it, mind, or it takes on a burnt taste.” If he’s feeling more adventurous, he’s very partial to a Scottish recipe in which you boil the kale with chicken stock, and throw in some oatmeal to thicken it up.

That’s probably one for the already converted. For my money, you can’t beat sweating the chopped kale gently in olive oil, and adding some sliced garlic a minute or so before it is cooked. Then finish it off with a good splash of soy sauce. Delicious.

Meanwhile, Molyneux will continue to spread the word to anyone who will listen. “I’ve got the elixir of life here. I can make you live longer. I don’t know what more I can say.”

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