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My good friend Vivian Good from Clare, Michigan submitted several great rhubarb recipes. Growing up in Illinois we always had an abundance of rhubarb. I remember peeling the outer red skin off (not quite sure why?) and then salting the rhubarb before we ate it straight from the plant. I don’t even think we washed it first (perhaps that’s why we stripped the red skin off!) because we were so excited to bite into it. Below are some fun rhubarb facts to get you in the mood for this wonderful treat.
The Chinese first cultivated rhubarb in 2700 B.C. The word rhubarb comes from the Latin rhabarbarum "root of the barbarians" because the Romans believed people who ate it to be barbaric in nature. (Foods for Love, p. 255) Rhubarb was ground into powder and used medicinally in Europe for centuries before cooks started including it in desserts in the late 1700’s.
Although used widely as a fruit, rhubarb (also called the pie-plant) is an example of the old vegetable/fruit conundrum. Unlike the tomato, which technically is a fruit, but is used as a vegetable, rhubarb is a vegetable normally treated as a fruit. Vegetable refers to plants with edible vegetative portions, including leaves, stalks, roots, underground stems, buds, flowers or seeds. Our ancestors wrote of cooking and consuming all parts of the rhubarb plant. With rhubarb, the redder the stalk, the sweeter the pie. (Never Trust a Calm Dog and Other Rules of Thumb, #2668) Ben Franklin is credited with being one of the first to send rhubarb seeds to the American colonies; his were from Scotland and went to Quaker plantsman, John Bartram, who was developing the country's first botanical garden in Philadelphia. Some Americans refer to rhubarb as "Persian Apple" because of its exotic place of origin (Central Asia) and its treatment when cooked in a pie. (Sauerkraut Yankees, p. 127) Medicinal rhubarb was widely cultivated in previous centuries. The Greeks and Romans, like the Chinese, from whom Europeans first got the plant, recommended it as a purgative and tonic. Mrs. Beeton in her book, Book of Household Management (1861) noted that rhubarb while "one of the most useful of all garden productions that are put into pie and puddings" was little known until the 1930's. President Andrew Jackson often recommended the eating of rhubarb roots for protection against scurvy. He was probably correct as the root is loaded with vitamins. (Early American Cookbook, p. 128) Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replaced each year. The perennial vegetables - rhubarb and asparagus. Rhubarb appeared in Asia Minor and the eastern Mediterranean around 2700 B.C. (The Secret Life of Food, p. 12)
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