In praise of rhubarb

[XmisterIS]

rhubarb crumble memory of school dinners

The trouble is that at school they used to boil it up in vats just as it was, hardly any sugar. It used to come out grey and tasted like battery acid.

They must employ a special class of chef to work in schools and colleges - someone who can take excellent, tasty, nutritious ingredients and completely ruin them ...

 

[longers]

It's very nice with grilled mackerel as well!

I was going to mention that I'd seen it as an accompaniment to mackerel. Don't need to bother now, but I will be trying it.

Thanks Paulus for the forcing advice, one clump of it is well established so I'll do that one in and leave the others for next year.

 

[CopperBrompton]

Rhubarb crumble, rhubarb tart and best of all, rhubarb fool - love the stuff!

 

[4F]

Love it, we have 5 rhubarb plants at our allotment

 

[sheddy]

also good as an aphrodisiac - use as a splint

 

[GrasB]

It is growing nicely in the garden, about 7 inches tall now. Plus, I found some of last years cooked rhubarb in the freezer so I had that on my porridge this morning. Yummy. Anyone else like it, or, are the legions on the forum against the stuff?

Freaky... I've just made a rhubarb & apple crumble from home grown rhubarb & apples

 

[Fnaar]

also good as an aphrodisiac - use as a splint

Before you've cooked it, presumably

Won't the leaf get in the way though?

 

[XmisterIS]

also good as an aphrodisiac - use as a splint

Reminds me of a (very misogynistic, with hindsight) grading system my mates and I used to use in our younger days for describing the attractiveness of women, which went as follows:

"single bagger" - You need a bag for her head.
"double bagger" - You need a bag for her head and yours.
"triple bagger" - you need a bag for her head, your head, and a bag of flour to find the wet spot.
"triple bagger with lollipop stick and gaffer tape" - you can work that one out for yourself!

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I'm not overly keen on rhubarb so the crumble to rhubard ratio has to be high and lots of evaporated milk to make it healthy!

 

[Fiona N]

I love rhubarb although not so keen on crumble. But the Swiss have a sweet quiche (cream and eggs baked in a pastry case) dessert called wehe (vey-hay) which is made with whatever fruit is to hand but, for my money, chunks of rhubard is the best. The tartness of the rhubard is a perfect foil to the sweet richess of the 'custard' part and crisp pastry.

 

[User482]

I tried it with smoked mackerel - very nice indeed.

My rhubarb has only just poked its head out of the ground. I have a large pot over it for forcing, but is there anything else I can do to hurry it along? Pack it with straw maybe?

 

[GM]

I love rhubarb, but unfortunately I am only aloud a very small portion of it, because its very high in Oxalate. Not good, if like me your prone to Kidney Stones. ( Ouch )

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Love it. We used to scrump it as kids and eat it raw, dipped into the sugar bowl.

Yeah me too - I used to pick it from my Dad's patch and eat it raw - but no sugar

My clump is about 6 inches or so out of the ground now. Can't wait till I can pick it. Crumble of course

 

[guitarpete247]

My mates and me knew where there was a clump growing wild. I think there had been allotments there years before. We used to take a paper bag of sugar and dip it in. We would be out across the fields from dawn to dusk every weekend and holiday. Today you wouldn't let your kids out for that long and certainly not let them go off wandering as far as we did.
As far as forcing goes. The best forced rhubarb comes from the Rhubarb Triangle of Yorkshire. If you are going to force one of your own clumps don't do it 2 years running, allow it time to recover.

 

[biggs682]

lifted the cover of ours at weekend quite a few signs of growth will keep it under cover for a few more weeks yet though , but rhubarb crumble is glorious