A strong case could be made for the argument that the more boring a vegetable appears at
first glance, the more fascinating or even scandalous it is upon closer examination. Perhaps
the most dramatic example of this is rhubarb - a nice vegetable, one that almost everybody
likes, but not one that many people get excited about. Rhubarb pie and hot, black coffee is
the perfect desert for a meatloaf dinner at a roadside diner, but not something that you'd
enthuse about to anybody unless it was spectacularly good. Rhubarb is like your uncle
Morty - you have a lot of affection for it, but not much passion.
But like Uncle Morty's years in the Navy that nobody in the family talks about, rhubarb has
a dark and mysterious history - and only some of it at the table.
Rhubarb is a perennial plant (the kind that grows from year to year) which forms large
fleshy rhizomes and large leaves with long, thick petioles (stalks) - in other words, it's not
the stem of the plant that you eat - it's the stem of the leaves. Only the stalks (or should we
be proper and call them petioles?) are edible - the leaves are fairly toxic. It is unlikely that
you'd be foolish enough to actually eat the leaves, but should you try, you'd be sorry. They
would form oxalic acid crystals in your body which would swell your tongue and throat,
making suffocation a real danger. The stalks on the other hand, are delicious - acidy and a
little sour, making it a perfect - once sweetened and cooked - complement for starchy or
heavy foods. While we have many fruits that we treat as vegetables - peppers, tomatoes,
cucumbers, avocados - rhubarb is just about the only vegetable we treat as a fruit.
Rhubarb has its origins in China, where it we know it was grown as long ago as 2700 BC.
Legend has it that it was one of the plants that Marco Polo brought back to Italy with him
in the 14th Century (though he would have had to bring a fleet of moving vans with him to
accommodate all the stuff that he is supposed to have schlepped back with him). We do
know that it was grown in botanical gardens in Europe all through the Renaissance, but it
was only comparatively recently that it was grown as a food. Up until the late 1700's, it
was considered a medicinal plant that was prescribed for everything from hangnails to
cholera. The first written reference to rhubarb as a food plant was found in 1778 as a pie
filling. Supposedly, it was first brought to North America in around 1800, by an avid
gardener in Maine, who liked it so well that he shared it with other gardeners in
Massachusetts. It was found in produce markets by the 1820s.
The really interesting thing about rhubarb though, is not it's role in cuisine, but in the
English language. For a word that you don't hear much in everyday conversation, rhubarb
has an amazingly colorful range of meanings.
If you aren't familiar with the Oxford English Dictionary, you should make it a point to fall
in love with it. It has - as well as any printed book can claim to have - a listing for every
word in the English language. It is as big as a set of encyclopedias, or comes in a
condensed version with printing so small you need a magnifying glass to read it. If you like
words, it is a magical experience. At any rate, the OED lists three basic meanings for the
word rhubarb - one for the actual plant and the medicines and foods made from it, the
second as an adjective meaning "sour" or "tart" and the third is as a noun meaning a
particular quality of bitterness. According to them, ABC could have easily and just as
correctly referred to "The Thrill of Victory and the Rhubarb of Defeat". The listing also
includes three delightful related words - rubarbaric, rhubarbarian and rhubarby.
It is when you leave the realm of proper "Queen's English" and venture into the world of
slang that things get really interesting for rhubarb, though:
It can mean "nonsense" - as in, "What a load of rhubarb!"
OR
Apparently, "rhubarb" was a 19th Century slang term for one's private parts. There was a
well-known coarse query a hundred years or so ago - "How's your rhubarb, Missus?" that
was guaranteed to get your face slapped.
OR
It could mean an advance on your wages - "C'mon Boss - give me a 50$ rhubarb. I've got
a sure thing at the track!"
OR
It is commonly used as a term for a heated or noisy argument - particularly at a sporting
event - "Oh no - it looks like Bobby Knight is in the middle of another rhubarb!"
OR
It is the technical theater term for the background noise that extras use in crowd scenes in
plays or movies - "Your Honor, the murderer is in this courtroom right now!" "Rhubarb,
rhubarb, rhubarb..."
OR
It can also be a term for the provinces or suburbs or the sticks - "We open in New York,
but then we have to tour the rhubarbs for 12 weeks."
OR (and this is my personal favorite)
There is a Canadian slang phrase, "hitting the rhubarb" that means driving one's car off the
road - "You'd better not have another drink Stanley, or you'll hit the rhubarb"
The most recent slang term for rhubarb is drug-related. During the 1990's MDMA pills or
"Ecstasy" came to be know as "Rhubarb and Custard", presumably due to their color.
Be that as it may, real, actual rhubarb is fresh and in season. Eat some.
