The View From Mudsock Heights: Remarkable, versatile rhubarb is important to our social fabric
By Dennis Powell
May 12, 2008
Of the various members of the phylum that includes beets, celery and eggplant, rhubarb is among the best.
And this year there is a bumper crop. It came up very quickly, so fast that it left the toadstools dragging their buttons in the dust.
Like most things growing in my little corner of the woods, the rhubarb is in my garden because Leonard and June planted it long before I moved here. If you ever sell your house and you’d like the people who buy it to think kindly of you forevermore, plant some rhubarb in a sunny spot before you go. (And tell them about it — when rhubarb first begins to emerge in February or March, it looks like some strange alien thing erupting from the ground.)
The rhubarb that Leonard and June planted isn’t the typical bright pink that one associates with the succulent stalks. When it gets very big — almost too big — it will get a little pinkish down by the roots, but basically it is green even when ready to harvest.
I may have mentioned it before, but it cannot be said too often: rhubarb stems are just fine for consumption, but the leaves are not good for you. They contain oxalic acid. This can be toxic to the kidneys, which are among our leading internal organs. (If there is a hard freeze after the rhubarb has started to grow leaves, the oxalic acid can be forced into the stems. But that didn’t happen here this year.)
Rhubarb leaves can be useful, though. For instance, they can be used to make a natural (but poisonous, so “natural” doesn’t mean much unless you think that organic dying is important) insecticide that will keep aphids off your plants. Heaven knows the ladybugs aren’t doing the job. Rhubarb root can be used to concoct a hair colorant that makes blondes even blonder. Really. That also would be organic dying.
So rhubarb is nature’s one-stop shop for cosmetics, food and poison. I asked a close warm personal friend, who happens to have an actual Ph.D. in biology, what she thinks of rhubarb, and what she said was enlightening:
“Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and butter a three-quart rectangular or oval glass baking dish. You’ll need these things:
1 stick of melted butter
3 pounds of rhubarb, cut into half-inch pieces
1 1/2 pints of strawberries
1 cup of ordinary sugar
1 cup of dark brown sugar
1 1/3 cups of flour
1/2 cup of rolled oats
3/4 cup of chopped walnuts or pecans
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
“Combine the fruit, granulated sugar, one-third cup of flour and cinnamon. Put the mixture in the baking dish. Combine the remaining ingredients and sprinkle them over the fruit mixture. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before eating. Serve it warm, with ice cream or whipped cream.”
I think we can all agree with her. My one word of caution has to do with the strawberries. Strawberry growers have managed to do what tomato growers have done: produce life-like replicas out of wood pulp or something. The nose is the proper detective here — don’t buy strawberries unless they smell like strawberries. (Later, don’t buy muskmelons unless they smell, at the stem end, like muskmelons. And as long as I’m being pedantic, the melons we get and grow here are muskmelons, not cantaloupes; cantaloupes are, strictly speaking, European — unless Alton Brown made it up, which I guess is possible.)
That having all been said, it’s not likely I’ll follow my friend’s advice. I’m inclined to prepare recipes that involve any real work only when I need to bring something to a social gathering or some such. That doesn’t mean, though, that I’ll not enjoy this year’s fine rhubarb harvest, not at all.
One of the loveliest aspects of growing things is the implication that it is now someone else’s job to cook it. If played carefully, the fact that the rhubarb exists through absolutely no effort of my own need not detract from the assumption that I’ve done my part.
This leads, though, to the truly loveliest aspect of gardening. Sometime this week I’ll cut a big bunch of rhubarb and take it to Matt and his mom Nelda, who will put it to good use. I’ll take another mess of it down to Deb at Fur Peace Ranch, who will make a treat for the students and faculty there this weekend. If I play my cards right, I may well get to enjoy the results.
Because it is true, especially in this part of the world: gardening is often a solitary pastime spent communing with the soil and the toil and the expectations. But enjoying the results is a most very social thing.
Editor’s note: Dennis E. Powell was an award-winning reporter in New York and elsewhere before moving to Ohio and becoming a full-time crackpot. His column appears on Mondays. You can reach him at dep@drippingwithirony.com.
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