Just in – Yorkshire Rhubarb
January 22nd, 2012
Rhubarb it seems originates from somewhere between the Himalayas and China and it’s said to have found its way to Europe as a result its root and its purgative powers. Apparently no one even considered eating the stalks until around 1800; probably no coincidence then that this is about the time that sugar became more readily available. By Victorian times, it had become very popular, with cookbooks regularly singing its praises as ‘a vegetable that can be eaten as a fruit’.
Once it was discovered that by keeping the stalks in the dark they grew longer, were much more delicate and a lot less astringent, an unlikely industry grew up around Wakefield in West Yorkshire dedicated to the cultivation of early forced rhubarb. The area later became known as the rhubarb triangle. At one point there were hundreds of small growers pooling their crops to ship over 200 tonnes daily out of Yorkshire. Today there are only 12 growers left still forcing rhubarb in this way.
One of the 12, Robert Tomlinson whose farm in Pudsey was established in 1850 tells me that in order to produce great forced rhubarb you need a good, prolonged cold snap to force the roots into dormancy. With the famous rhubarb ‘triangle’ sitting in the shadow of the Pennines, the shield provided by the hills helps create a fantastic frost pocket which aids the flavour of the rhubarb. Once the cold snap occurs, Robert digs the roots out of the field and brings them indoors into dark sheds where the temperature is raised slowly to stimulate the growing process. As it slowly cracks its way through the tight root bed in search of light this rhubarb doesn’t get a chance to photosynthesis resulting in an intense pink colour and a marvelously delicate flavour. It is then harvested by hand and as the sheds are virtually pitch dark, the pickers go in on hands and knees to extract each stalk individually.
At its absolute best at this time of year when there is little else in season; Yorkshire rhubarb always generates a creative stir in our kitchens. The standard English repertoire for rhubarb provides us with the very best of nursery food, crumbles, fools et al, but the delicacy of this early Yorkshire rhubarb opens up lots of other culinary avenues too. Maybe cooked to a chunky puree with butter and brown sugar to serve with duck or perhaps poached in sweet wine to serve with brown sugar meringues and Greek Yoghurt. This certainly isn’t the rhubarb I grew up with as a kid which came with a paper bag of granulated sugar as its only adornment.
Also great with rhubarb are:- ginger, dessert wine, grenadine, oranges (especially blood oranges), mackerel, duck, foie gras, brown sugar, custard, strawberries, cream, cloves, Greek yoghurt.
