Spring rhubarb
“Stems & Flowers” seems an apt heading for a book on floral design, right?
Well in this case it’s a chapter from my new book Growing Your Own Vegetables. My co-author Carla Emery, creator of the Encyclopedia of Country Living, cleverly divided up the edible vegetable kingdom into the following categories:
- The onion family (see here)
- Leaves
- Stems & Flowers
- Roots
- Grasses & Grains
- Legumes
- Gourds
- The Nightshade Family
- Herbs
Carla was a great one for enumerating, listing, cataloging and organization. Me? Not so much. But I think this simple breakdown for backyard vegetables cuts to the chase and focuses our thinking. Clarity is Good.
Stems and Flowers covers:
…vegetables [that] are all either the new shoot of an emerging plant, the edible stem or a food-storing root like bulge in the stem, or the flowering bud of a plant. These fleshy parts function as the plant’s food storage site and as such are filled with nutrients, not to mention flavor.
Which brings me to Rhubarb. That herald of spring and often the first crop to emerge in a still-chilly garden; it’s even PINK. Nothing says spring like pink; you can get away with a lot of almost tooth-achingly sweet pink in the garden when the light is drippy dewy pale and we’re starved for horticultural sustenance after a long winter.
The weather has settled here in the Puget Sound area (***knock wood***) and rhubarb is showing up in every grocer, farmer’s market and for the lucky ones, even the backyard. Most of us think of rhubarb as a fruit – it is delicious combined with strawberries in pie or stewed with orange juice for a sweet-tart dessert topping but technically Rheum rhabarbarum is a long-lived, hardy perennial vegetable native to Siberia.
Rhubarb actually thrives on being frozen all winter. For that simple fact it is one of the earliest and most reliable crops in backyards from Maine to Michigan, across the Rocky Mountain states all the way out to the left coast. From pies to cobblers, stewed and sauced, rhubarb lends itself to sweet preparations with the addition of sugar, honey, or fruit juice to balance its mouth puckering tart flavor.
Now I could eat pie for breakfast lunch and dinner and frankly see nothing wrong with that. However, a more sensible person may want to try a delicious Rhubarb butter sauce to perk up chicken, duck or salmon where it’s sharp, sprightly flavor will cut the richness (or bland chicken-ness) for a meal that is perfect for spring.
A toast to good friends
This week I’m having a virtual cocktail party with my garden-writing friends. We’re scattered throughout the western states so we can’t gather under the same roof as much as I would love to see their smiling faces. Last winter we had a rollicking good time together with an evening of homemade pizza tossing and rhubarbtinis. Lucky for us our host-with-the-most, David Perry, had put up a batch of Rhubarb juice from his previous years’ largess. The warmth of our friendship and that rhubarb hint of spring got us through a nasty winter evening. So I thought I’d return the favor and make up a batch of Rhubarb simple syrup. I’ve invited my co-”horts” (groan, I know) to do the same and concoct a refreshing, and appropriately seasonal Rhubarb libation. We plan to lift our glasses – wherever we are – and welcome the season as we toast good friends.
straining the juice
ooooo, pretty!
Rhubarb Simple Syrup
8-10 medium stalks of rhubarb
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups water
Slice rhubarb into 1/2″ slices. Put in a saucepan with sugar and water. Bring to a boil, then turn down to simmer for 3-5 minutes. Do not stir. Remove from heat and let it sit, undisturbed for 10 minutes. Place in a colander lined with cheesecloth over a bowl. Let it drain into the bowl for 15 minutes or until it has stopped draining. Pour finished syrup into a covered container and refrigerate until you’re ready to use. If you need to cool it quickly, place the bowl into a larger metal bowl filled with ice water. Thank you for this recipe goes to Mixed Greens, a delicious blog I follow. Follow the link for their recipe for Rhubarb margaritas.
How to grow Rhubarb
Planting: Plant 2- or 3-year-old roots in fertile soil in spring or fall in an area of other permanent plantings; the beautifully ornamental leaves make this plant a good candidate for working into the perennial border. Well fed, mature plants grow 2 to 3 feet tall and as wide; space accordingly. Remove flower spikes as they appear to maintain peak production of edible stalks.
Harvesting: Allowing a year for the plants to establish, you can begin to harvest lightly by cutting or twisting and pulling the largest individual stalks. in subsequent years as much as 2/3 of the stalks may be pulled, leaving the remaining 1/3 to replenish the roots for the next year’s crop. Note: Rhubarb leaves contain toxic oxalic acid; discard or use to mulch around the plants.
From Growing Your Own Vegetables, by Carla Emery & Lorene Edwards Forkner, Sasquatch Books
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
“from Maine to Michigan, across the Rocky Mountain states all the way out to the left coast”
I’m living in Yellowknife, and have found it to be the only vegetable not requiring a greenhouse up here. It is a wonderfully versatile plant and I think everyone should have at least one in their garden, for pies, juice and of course syrup. Thanks for posting this recipe.
This looks like a yummy drink. I’d definitely like to try it. But have you made it with honey instead of sugar? Often I hesitate to try those syrups because of all the sugar. Suggestions? Teresa
Teresa, I completely agree on the sugar. Besides, I prefer my libations on the tart side of sweet anyway! Honey is sweeter than sugar, so you could use less. However, it might also interfere with the rhubarb flavor. There’s only one way to find out! let me know how it turns out – cheers