4. Rhubarb

Rhubarb has a special place in the hearts of Minnesotans. It’s the plant that epitomizes midwestern values: sturdy, hardworking, dependable, low maintenance and self-effacing. It’s the kind of plant you want to settle down with in a long-term relationship. All of our neighbors and all of my relatives had a rhubarb patch. Ours sat at the edge of the garden growing quietly, predictably, with no watering required. Rhubarb is ripe throughout spring and summer, but it is best not to harvest it until the stalks are ten inches long. Then you just let it be after June, so it can store energy for the winter. And always leave some of the stalks, rather than denuding the entire plant. Remember, it has midwestern sensibility and modesty.

Rhubarb is native to central Asia, and awareness of its medicinal qualities goes back five thousand years in China. During Islamic times, it was imported along the Silk Road, reaching Europe in the 14th century through the ports of Aleppo and Smyrna, where it became known as “Turkish rhubarb”. The cost of transportation across Asia made rhubarb expensive in medieval Europe. It was several times the price of other valuable herbs and spices such as cinnamon, opium and saffron. The high price as well as the increasing demand from apothecaries stimulated efforts to cultivate the different species of rhubarb on European soil, where it became particularly popular in England and Scandinavia. In France it was discovered that the stalks were not just good for medicine, but also good for eating, producing a tasty sauce. British cooks did not take to it until later, but British scientists continued to try to produce a product as good as the Russians were selling. And when Benjamin Franklin sent a case of rhubarb root from London to his friend John Bartram in 1770, it was introduced to North America as a medicine, not as a food product. In 1829 rhubarb appeared in American seed catalogues, and it has been a popular garden product ever since, becoming a primary ingredient in jams, sauces, preserves and especially pies, being called “pie plant” by many Midwesterners. It is especially successful in the northern states, requiring minimal care, and it is one of the earliest edible garden products in the spring.

Today rhubarb is grown widely and with greenhouse production it is available throughout much of the year. Hothouse rhubarb is usually brighter red, tenderer and sweeter tasting than outdoor rhubarb. In the United Kingdom, the first rhubarb of the year is harvested by candlelight in forcing sheds where all other light is excluded, a practice that produces an even sweeter, more tender stalk. These sheds are dotted around the “Rhubarb Triangle” between Wakefield, Leeds and Morley.

It was my Swedish grandmother, Lena Nordstrom Andersen, who introduced me to rhubarb through her rhubarb cake. My grandmother was 83 when I was born, and she died just before I turned three, but I have distinct memories of her white hair and dark clothing. Scandinavians have distinct light and dark sides. We’re famous for them. One side is represented by the idyllic watercolors of family life painted by the popular Swedish painter, Carl Larsson. The dark side was popularized by the filmmaker, Ingmar Bergman. My grandmother personified both of these characterizations with her white hair coming loose as she cooked over her wood-burning stove and her perpetually dark demeanor. I don’t remember her ever touching me but she did feed me rhubarb cake, and that was how she showed me that she cared for me, or at least fulfilled her responsibility towards me, I don’t know which. Lena’s house, like herself, was bright white on the outside and dark and brooding on the inside. She slept in the first-floor dining room when she could no longer climb the stairs, and it was separated from the living room by a heavy curtain. Of course, all of these are early childhood memories of an old woman, so I don’t know what she was really like. I visited the house years later as an adult and while I had remembered it as being enormous, it was in fact a very small house. My grandfather’s blacksmith shop sat at the back of the lot. The rhubarb patch - still prosperous - grew alongside it. My memories of that rhubarb patch, like the house itself, were out of scale, but I was looking at it from three feet high. Still, when I think of my grandmother, I think of that rhubarb patch, both in somewhat distorted dimensions.

My Swedish grandmother and her Danish husband were poor and could not afford the brown sugar and cinnamon that my mother would later use in her version of rhubarb cake. The upgrade gave it a moist and spicier flavor, and of course, my grandmother’s cake never arrived with ice cream. But I still remember its rhubarby smell while it baked in her oven and eating it while sitting on a wooden stool in her kitchen. My grandmother’s rhubarb cake was no-nonsense, but she launched a love affair with the plant for me.

My mother used rhubarb to make jams and rhubarb sauce (which is great when served over ice cream) but it was her rhubarb pie that launched us into ecstasy. While most people combine rhubarb and strawberries for pie purposes, this practice was frowned upon by my mother. She would say the strawberry can’t hold its own when combined with rhubarb, and that it was better to feature rhubarb on its own in a pie. She thought strawberries were used to their best advantage when featured in strawberry shortcake, which she made during strawberry season to rave reviews. If rhubarb must be combined with other fruits, my family thinks that raspberries or blackberries are much better companions, for they are complementary and offer interesting textural and taste combinations.

From our own rhubarb patch in Minneapolis, Eric began to launch an all-out rhubarb festival each May. Eric’s enthusiasm for it is supported by the fact that it was his French ancestors who discovered that rhubarb stalks were edible. Our rhubarb festival starts with a rhubarb pie for my birthday and then expands to rhubarb custard pie, which was one of my mother’s favorites. From there we move on to my grandmother Andersen’s rhubarb cake with my mother’s adjustments, from a recipe that my sister Becky has kept. The rhubarb cake is such a hit that last season we baked three versions testing varying amounts of rhubarb, brown sugar and butter. There was leftover rhubarb and it became rhubarb compote for granola and rhubarb syrup to be mixed with sparkling water or to make rhubarb “shrubs”, a beverage that is mixed with vinegar. But why stop there? We made rhubarb ice cream and then variations with raspberries, followed by rhubarb sorbet. The rhubarb theme extends into June to take full advantage of the season, and by then I always rationalize that since rhubarb isn’t really a fruit it could hardly be considered a dessert, and so we place no restrictions on our rhubarb-a-thon.

There is only one downside to rhubarb. Its leaves are poisonous and should never be eaten. Which brings us back to the light and dark side of all things. I have never enjoyed overly sweet desserts, but rhubarb, like limes and lemons, brings a depth of flavor with its tart essence. And when counter-balanced with just enough sweetness to bring out its flavor it becomes a complex blend of Carl Larsson and Ingmar Bergman in every bite.

Rhubarb Cake

Elina (Lena) Nordstrom Andersen (aka “Grammy”)

We discovered this family recipe while delivering a slice of rhubarb pie to Chris’ eldest sister Becky. Chris loves rhubarb more than just about anything else, and he was eager to share a slice of rhubarb pie made for his birthday. During the handover Becky casually mentioned this family cake and it piqued our interest. Despite being an old family recipe from his paternal grandmother, and one Chris’ mother incorporated into her own kitchen repertoire, this cake had somehow fallen off Chris’ dessert radar.

Becky later emailed us the recipe and the results were so surprisingly delicious that it started a frenzy of rhubarb cake baking to get the recipe just right, which then expanded into cooking other rhubarb treats including Glad’s favorite rhubarb custard pie. We refer to this fevered baking season as Riotous Rhubarb-o-Rama. This cake, along with many other rhubarb treats, is now an essential dessert in our late spring and early summer menus. ~Eric

1/2 cup sweet butter (one stick) + 1 tbsp
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup sour milk (milk with 1 tsp white vinegar)
2 cups rhubarb, chopped
Cinnamon sugar for topping

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Use 1 tablespoon of butter to grease a round spring-form cake tin, or a 9 x 9 cake pan if you want squares.

3. Blend well the flour, salt and baking soda set aside.

4. Whisk the butter and sugar as well as possible, then blend in eggs and then milk.

5. Slowly sift in dry ingredients until well blended, careful not to clump up.

6. Fold in chopped rhubarb and then pour into baking tin.

7. Bake in middle of oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

8. Once cooled, dust with cinnamon sugar (more cinnamon than sugar).

Serves 8-10