A fool for rhubarb

Rhubarb evokes strong reactions. My mother grew up during WWII and endured rationing and wartime dentistry; as a result she has terrible teeth and, determined her children shouldn’t suffer as she had, banned sugar from the dining table. Imagine our delight when delectable bowlfuls of translucent, neon-pink rhubarb were served up, the silken strands nestling luxuriantly in their own juice, with freedom to add our own sugar and cream! It was gobbled up with much lip-smacking appreciation, which continues in my own family to this day. 

 “Utter tosh!” argue the rhubarb-haters, often the post-war generation forced to eat it as children, along with other despised nursery foods like liver, spinach (the old-fashioned variety with a strong metallic flavour that made your teeth go furry) and, top of my own list of pet hates, tripe. Jane Grigson spoke for the nay-sayers in her Fruit Book, where she recalled being told rhubarb was: “‘Good for you, dear. Good for you.’ And there it lay, pink and slightly green. Livid Bird’s custard yellowing on one side of the plate.”  

What is it about this about this strange plant, grown in the dark with large, poisonous leaves, that people either love or hate it?

We have the Chinese to thank for introducing us to rhubarb – they used its dried roots as a purgative 5000 years ago. Three millennia later, its dried roots also appeared as ingredients in Greek and Roman medicines. Astringent to eat, with an explosive result, rhubarb roots became a popular laxative (still available today, if uncommon), though in medieval Europe the high cost of transport across Asia made them more expensive than other sought-after herbs and spices such as cinnamon, opium, and saffron.

It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that rhubarb stalks became popular as a food in Britain, thanks to sugar becoming more widely available to sweeten it in pies, tarts and crumbles. The accidental discovery of “forced” winter rhubarb – when the crown is deprived of light to encourage stalk growth, providing longed-for fresh fruit in early spring – accelerated its popularity to the point of mania. The “Rhubarb Triangle” in West Yorkshire was then an area of 30 square miles, (now a nine-square-mile area between Wakefield, Morley and Rothwell), where pickers pulled stalks by candlelight in special forcing sheds, heated with cheap coal from local mines. 

Simon Hopkinson perfectly sums up the particular sweetness of forced rhubarb in his Roast Chicken and Other Stories: Second Helpings: “The scent of an early, forced strawberry may tempt and tease the impatient palate, but the taste in the mouth seems bereft of any flavour whatsoever. Early, forced, bright pink rhubarb, however, is another matter entirely. It knocks every single one of my many prejudices over… The very sight of those long and spindly, slightly limp bundles of bright pink forced rhubarb corrodes my integrity in an instant. I blush. I crumble.”

The rhubarb plant is a magnificent structural beast in the herbaceous borders in full summer and a vital plant in the cottage garden; they always make me think of Beatrix Potter and certainly my chickens like to stay cool under the leaves on hot days. My mother would pull off raw stalks for us to suck or gnaw on as children, dipped first in the illicit sugar bowl; this gave her a short break from the whines and moans of four small children, much as you quieten a dog with a chew. Luckily, she never let on to my brothers that the leaves were poisonous, or I might not be here to tell the tale. According to National Geographic: “Rhubarb has a killer reputation that apparently dates to WWI, when rhubarb leaves were recommended on the home front as an alternative food. At least one death was reported, an event that rhubarb has yet to live down.”

I recommend you settle back on the sofa with 4oz of Rhubarb and Custards to suck on, a glass of home-made rhubarb wine, and Eric Sykes’ 1969 film Rhubarb on the screen. “Rhubarb” is the only word uttered in this film. (Stage or film extras used to shout “rhubarb” repeatedly to cause the effect of general hubbub, not unlike an argument between people who love or loathe this marvellous fruit.) Enjoy!

RHUBARB FOOL

400g rhubarb, trimmed
125g caster sugar
50 ml ginger wine
300 ml double cream
500g Greek yogurt

Cut rhubarb into 2.5cm chunks. Put into a pan with 75g sugar and 75ml water. Bring to the boil; simmer gently for 5 mins. Strain, reserving syrup. Pour syrup back into pan and simmer until reduced by a third. Cool. 

In a large bowl whisk cream, yogurt, and rest of sugar until soft peaks form. Mash half the rhubarb; stir into cream. Fold in remaining pieces. Divide among six 250ml glasses. Serve with the syrup and stem ginger biscuits.

Lydia Brownlow was a cookery editor at Good Housekeeping Magazine and a contributor to The Daily Beast. Latterly she has been inspiring children to cook.

More info at lydiabrownlow.com