Its fills my childhood memory banks, That sour, pucker your mouth feel, as my mom would pull a fresh rhubarb stalk and give it to us to chew on, the burst of flavor combo on the times you would be allowed to dip the end in sugar. The rhubarb leave cut off and stuck inside your hat to help keep you cool on a hard working day. Making Rhubarb leaf bug spray to help with pest control, but mainly Rhubarb seems to go in SO MANY of our fruits, Rhubarb and Saskatoon, Rhubarb and Strawberries, Rhubarb and Rasberries..

Rhubarb Relish which is devine on any kind of cold meat but seems made as a match in heaven to go with the more stronger flavored game meats like deer or moose, or in my case lamb or goat.

As a adult there are things about all that cooking with rhubarb that I have figured out 1) It was a very cheap, easy to grow, always there filler, it was how my grandmother and mother could take two buckets of hard picked berries and turn out dozens of quart jars, because the rubarb was the main  fiber filler

2) I believe that it was and still is part of the reason that many in my family open  kettle can and have had good success at it, (not that I am recommending it) but as a combo of being clean, understanding the rules of keeping everything at boils when working with them, having very cold root cellers, eating though their products within the one winter most times, all add in why it worked so well for them.  I would highly recommend that you do a full waterbath canning process for fruit, jam and relishes etc.

However back to the rubarb.. its a acid, the average rhubarb stalk has a high acid level of 3.0 to 3.6 ph, Which is why its never recommended to be cooked in cooper, Iron or aluminum as the metal ions might or may leach into the food, you should always use Steel pots to cook your rhubarb in.

I grow both garden rhubarb and Medical Rhubarb on the farm, I only have two Medical Rhubarb plants but I currently have 14 rhubarb plants and plan to expand that bed even more, we never seem to have enough rhubarb, I think? that 20 plants should meet our yearly needs.

At one time there was a couple rhubarb plants or more on everyones farm or backyard across N.A., its is still a very popular plant across the planet, It is a member of the buckwheat family, it was native to Asia but was grown all across Europe by the middle ages and was brought to N.A. with the settlers, it is said that Benjamin franklin 1706-1790 was often credited for introducing the rhubarb to popularity in the USA.

Rhubarb does not typically come true to seed and so most cultivars are between 50 to 150 years old, and most folks start with a devide or root to start their new plants. While there is no real difference between flavors between green or red rubarb, the red contains high amounts of polyphenols, which are powerful antioxidants.

Rubarb is so healthy, and if you are looking at 100 mile or local diets, this plant’s fruit is a way in winter to meet those cravings.  I am not going to try and write it out, I just took a picture of the stats from my one book and will share it that way but check out the levels of potassium (when craving banana’s) or Calcium(lacking fresh milk, when the girls are dried up for the last part of their pregancy’s) and of course, there is that lovely Vit C.

Last note: Remember, do not eat rhubarb leaves, only the stalks, you can compost the leaves, or use them to make a bug off tea to use in the garden, but no eat them yourselfs, and don’t feed them to livestock etc.

Breakfast: Eggs

Lunch-Bread with egg salad

Dinner-Pizza -Canadian Style

Drinks-Water, Tea

Extra’s-Bread, a Dozen Hard Boiled Eggs.

So do you have rhubarb in your garden? What is your favorite treat that has rubarb as part of it? Do you have childhood memories of eating fresh stalks dipped or undipped?