During a quick trip across the river to Thurso and Ripon, Quebec, I spotted a few batches of rhubarb in small markets. It’s a fruit (or is it a vegetable?) I often forget is out there at this time of the year.
The crop grows plentifully across the country, but some of the best stalks are coming out of the fields as we speak – and for a short time only.
Take advantage when you find it at local farm stands or in select grocery stores.
Whether it’s a fruit or a vegetable is perhaps up for culinary debate, but that the debate exists at all is an indication of the plant’s polarizing nature: some people love the tart quality of this harbinger of early summer; others dislike it intensely.
Outdoor varieties of rhubarb – which is often given away by the large broad and distinctive leaves you can spot growing in gardens – include Valentine, McDonald and German Wine varieties.
It’s also a plant whose winter varieties – Victoria or Sutton – are “forced” to grow by planting shoots in the fall in a darkened environment inside until buds are produced. It is said that such treatment makes for sweeter rhubarb.
Rhubarb has a rich culinary history, and although it is used in many desserts, it is a vegetable, botanically speaking: it’s a perennial herb that originated in the temperate regions of Eurasia and has been a part of cookery, including North American cookery, for hundreds of years.
It likely originally came from Mongolia growing alongside the river banks of what is now the Volga River (and what was once known as the Rha).
Eventually it made its way into ancient Roman hands, and they called it “rha barbarum” – the Romans, according to culinary historian Mark Morton, presumed that anything that came from outside their empire was “barbaric.”
This may explain the historical origin of a slang term that, in the 1930s in the favourite summer sport, baseball, described an old timey nasty shouting match and rowdy, aggressive altercation as a “rhubarb.”
So, it came to be that, over centuries of evolving languages and cultural tweaking through Latin, French and English, we have the word and the plant rhubarb.
The plant likely started off not in the kitchen but for its presumed quality as a medicinal ingredient rather than as a foodstuff – no doubt an irony when you consider that the leaves, rich in oxalic acid, are often considered poisonous and potentially dangerous.
One rhubarb recipe from 1604 includes aquavitae (a clear brandy), mace and cinnamon (as well as arcane ingredients like musk and ambergris) which is boiled down, reduced and allowed to cool before being strained.
The medicinal beverage called « Water Imperiall » was used primarily as a laxative, or so the apothecaries of the time believed. In the play Macbeth, the Scottish king asks, « What rhubarb, cyme [a concoction], or what purgative drug, / Would scour these English hence? »
In addition to its use in Shakespearean iambic pentameter, given its late spring harvest, English cooks by the 18th century were using rhubarb for pies when other fruit was out of season.
It became a more regular cooking ingredient when new varieties of the often brilliant red-hued stalks were developed, and greenhouse versions were grown that were less tart and sour.
As world agriculture and economies shifted, lower sugar prices with cane sugar eventually gave rhubarb a further popularity boost, and between the two world wars it experienced a period of heightened interest among cooks.
The best rhubarb is freshly picked with the leaves still attached, so remove them just before use.
Rhubarb keeps at its peak flavour, refrigerated, for about three days.
In recipes, keep cooking liquids to a minimum quantity because it will dilute the colour of the rhubarb. Adding a bit of baking soda to a recipe can help reduce the acidity of your baked rhubarb dish.
Rhubarb has versatility for sweet and savoury applications; for instance, it is often part of Iranian and Afghan stews and other dishes and is used as you would use spinach.
You can always enjoy making a classic rhubarb and strawberry pie – sometimes the tried-and-true tastes best.
But experiment with combining rhubarb, strawberries, sugar and water in a pot and simmer it down as a simple syrup for use in summery cocktails known has “shrubs” on the back patio. It seems to go well with tequila, for instance.
Other imaginative creations can be to take some freshly cooked down rhubarb with some olive oil and dollop it over some goat cheese or ricotta cheese that is spread on toasted baguette. It’s a refreshing and unique snack or condiment for an appetizer.
Adding spices like cardamom gives a new layer to rhubarb flavours, and when you’ve had your fill of the fresh stuff in compotes or pies over its relatively short season, give rhubarb some love with a pickle brining for use later in the summer.
Food writer Andrew Coppolino lives in Rockland. He is the author of “Farm to Table” and co-author of “Cooking with Shakespeare.” Follow him on Instagram @andrewcoppolino.
