Rhubarb
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| Rhubarb on an old farm in the style of Picasso A.I. picture |
I drove down to the farm specifically to look for morel mushrooms again. The last time there was adequate moisture but we were fresh off of two nights below zero and so I thought it was too cold. This time, two days later, two warm 60+ degrees day later, I thought for sure they would be popping but I was wrong. Or at least I walked by hundreds and didn't see a one. So I'll give them a couple days and try once more but judging from the signs of the forest floor, weed heights, etc., we now need some more rain and if we get any it will be in the form of the less desirable yellow morels. Maybe for the first time in my life, this will finally be the year where I go without finding a single morel mushroom.
On my way home, I got to thinking about mom's rhubarb plants. She had them planted on the south side of the garage and they always produced lots of rhubarb in spring. Mom would turn it into tangy cobblers that we always enjoyed with a healthy scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. But perhaps a decade ago, the old rhubarb bed, after years of producing, finally petered out and there was no more rhubarb. My wife was given a scraggly remains of one that hadn't been sold late one fall a couple years back and we stuck it in the ground at the farm. It did okay but I discovered later that we broke the rules and harvested some stalks off of it the next year when we were supposed to let it remain unmolested for at least two years. Plus it isn't real convenient down at the farm and tended to bolt since we weren't there to pick it regularly.
So on a whim, I stopped by the nursery at the edge of town and sure enough, they had about 6 rhubarb plants left. Four of them were in rough shape with dried and yellowed leaves but two of them still had healthy green leaves and so I picked them up and took them home. I planted them on the south side of our greenhouse where they can get full sun all summer long and the late winter sun will help keep the ground a bit warmer during winter than on the north side of a building. Three years from now, perhaps I will get enough rhubarb off of it to make a few cobblers just like my mom did.
Wow, rhubarb. My grandmother grew it. I don't recall that she ever made cobbler or pie with it, but my dad loved stewed rhubarb, which my grandmother made and froze. Even sweetened, it was too tart for my childish tastes back then, but I love tart flavors now and would probably love it. Trouble is, our summers are just too hot and my attempts at growing it have been fails.
ReplyDeleteFunny about foraged foods. Some years they are prolific, some years - nothing. I hope you at least get some morels this year!
I'm still not on the board this year for morels. It is just way too dry at this point but I will probably go out and look one last time this coming weekend for yellows, which can come up in drier soils than the grays.
DeleteMy hope is to have a prolific crop of asparagus someday and when that happens, I'll have to look at ways to preserve it. I think my mom froze some of it but I don't recall having it any other way than pies and cobblers.
If you like pickles, there are a lot of good recipes for pickled asparagus - refrigerator pickles as well as water-bath pickles. They're nice on a meat/cheese tray, or next to a sandwich.
DeleteI tried to grow asparagus once. Same problem. It takes several years to bear any edible results. And we moved . . . so I got nothing. This was years ago. But who knows? Maybe the current owners are enjoying my asparagus.
ReplyDeleteMy parents planted beds a couple times over the years. I haven't been back to the old farm to see if the bed is still producing.
DeleteI'm not sure if I've ever had rhubarb or not. I know lots of folks mix it with strawberries in pies/cobblers.
ReplyDeleteI like that AI painting.
It is very tart when raw which is a flavor I like very well. For pies and cobblers, we soften the tartness with some sugar.
DeleteI love rhubarb and hope you are successful growing some. We have a lot around here; there is even a local rhubarb festival. My friend's mom made a rhubarb custard pie that was amazing. Rhubarb and strawberries(another specialty of my town) are often combined!
ReplyDeleteIf and when I can reap a good crop of rhubarb, I will be on the hunt for recipes other than cobbler!
DeleteThe only time I had rhubarb was at a quaint little restaurant in New Hampshire called Stone's Kitchen. Strawberry Rhubarb pie. It was absolutely delicious! My son's treat when we visited him for his graduation.
ReplyDeleteYou have me curious as to the range rhubarb grows.
DeleteOld rhubarb patches are hard to destroy. It looks funny to see a rhubarb patch in the middle of a grain field.
ReplyDeleteI was reading up on rhubarb and found that they are only supposed to produce around 8 years but I know of patches at least twice as old as that. Maybe the older varieties were even hardier.
DeleteYou would be able to cobble together some cobblers.
ReplyDeleteAt least for the first few until I build up my skills.
DeleteI remember our German landlord in Chicago used to cut the rhubarb leaves (from his neighbor's property) that would end up on his side of the fence. I thought he made rhubarb jam out of it.
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