Catching up with rhubarb: A cup of stewed, sugared rhubarb contains as much calcium as a glass of milk
Published: 05-21-2024 3:44 PM |
My favorite season of the year is here. Asparagus and rhubarb tend to ripen in New England at about the same time, and they have arrived. I’ll talk more about asparagus soon. Meanwhile, I’m savoring rhubarb as much as I can.
I try to learn something new about rhubarb every year. A couple of days ago, I turned to the internet and searched for “fun facts about rhubarb.” I found more articles than one might expect. In recent years, rhubarb has become increasingly fashionable.
Alas, however, it was hard to find a new fact about this plant. Perhaps I should have expected this. After all, I did write a book about rhubarb. Nevertheless, I kept hoping I’d be enlightened. I will note some of the facts here in case readers are less familiar with rhubarb than I am.
Most articles started with rhubarb’s history as a medicinal plant in China. Of course, I knew this. I even knew something that the articles didn’t tend to mention: Chinese rhubarb is quite different from the “pie plant” with which we New Englanders cook.
I discovered the contrast on a trip to Hancock Shaker Village, where I was serving treats from my rhubarb book to customers. One of the joys of this preserved Shaker community is its sumptuous garden. In that garden, I found a patch of Chinese rhubarb.
Its leaves were different from the rounded ones in my yard, rather jagged and pointy. When I asked my museum hosts whether I could take home a stalk for cooking, they denied my request. They weren’t completely sure it was edible. In ancient China, the plant’s roots were ground up for medicine. People didn’t eat the stalks.
Articles also mentioned the old (to me) fact that rhubarb leaves are poisonous. One essay noted, as I have learned, that it would take an enormous number of rhubarb leaves to harm the average eater seriously.
A rhubarb-based mystery novel I read, “Pushing Up Rhubarb” by Diana Saco, solved this problem by having the murderer distill many leaves into a liquid that was incorporated into an otherwise innocuous rhubarb recipe. That strikes me as a lot of work.
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Articles also tried to tell me that rhubarb was a vegetable, not a fruit. Of course, I knew this. I also knew that the U.S. Customs Court of Buffalo, N.Y., began classifying it as a fruit in 1947.
This appears to have something to do with the fact that fruits are less expensive to import than vegetables; it gave imported rhubarb a little edge. And of course the articles told me that rhubarb is healthy and nutritious, that green rhubarb is as edible as red, and that the word “rhubarb” has many different meanings. Check, check, check.
I read article after article. Eventually, I had to settle for a fact I sort of knew. I mentioned earlier that rhubarb is healthy. It contains many vitamins and minerals. I had never looked into their specific identity, however. I learned from my recent reading that a cup of stewed, sugared rhubarb contains as much calcium as a glass of milk. It might even contain a little more. I’m not lactose intolerant, but I know people who are. They often search for non-dairy sources of calcium. Rhubarb fits the bill.
Of course, I don’t eat it because it’s a source of calcium or because it might be medicinal. I eat rhubarb because I love its tart flavor. I also love the strength of its stems and the fact that it’s free, growing as it does with very little encouragement in my yard.
If you don’t have your own rhubarb patch, ask your neighbors whether they can spare some. It pops up every spring in yards all over New England, and some people who have it in abundance don’t like it.
In my opinion, the rhubarb haters would love rhubarb if they found the right way to cook it (and I have ways to cook it!). Still, when I run out of rhubarb in my own yard, I’m grateful for the indifference of my neighbors to this delicious food.
I have shared several rhubarb recipes over the years in these pages. Today, I’m giving you a recipe from my rhubarb book. I call it Rhubarb Catch Up. Catch Up is my cute (well, I think it’s cute) term for catsup or ketchup or (in the original Chinese since this food, like rhubarb, started in China) kê-tsiap.
I like the term Catch Up because making the sauce is an easy way to preserve rhubarb for weeks, thus catching me up with my crop.
This condiment doesn’t taste like tomato catsup. Why should it? It does nicely combine sweet and tart, like the best tomato version. I like it on hamburgers, chicken, and grilled vegetables. I imagine it would work well with pork or fish as well.
Ingredients:
3 cups rhubarb (in small pieces)
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/4 cup apple cider plus 1/2 cup later
3 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon (generous) ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon pickling spices
1/2 teaspoon salt
a few turns of your pepper grinder
Instructions:
In a 2-quart nonreactive saucepan, toss together the rhubarb and brown sugar.
In a tiny nonreactive saucepan, heat the 1/4 cup cider and the vinegar.
When they come to a boil remove them from the heat and stir in the ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and pickling spices.
Let the two pans sit at room temperature for two hours. The rhubarb should juice up a little, and the spices should steep nicely in the liquid.
After the resting period add the spices and their liquid to the rhubarb. Toss the remaining cider into the pot that held the spices to pick up any remaining spices, and add it to the rhubarb as well. Stir in the salt and pepper.
Bring the rhubarb mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat and boil the resulting sauce, stirring frequently, for 20 minutes. Turn off and let cool.
In a blender or food processor puree the cooled sauce. Ladle it into a sterilized jar or two and refrigerate it until you are ready to use it.
Makes about 2 1/2 cups of catsup.
Tinky Weisblat is a writer and singer known as the Diva of Deliciousness. Her book “Love, Laughter, and Rhubarb” won the “best cookbook” blue ribbon at the New England Book Festival. Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.