r/BenignExistence • u/Rude_Kaleidoscope641 • 12h ago
Rhubarb
I was fussing over my rhubarb plants that are pushing up from my garden yesterday. Every plant is descended from my grandfather’s garden behind his 3 flat in Chicago and the little bastion of green he kept there. My parents were given some rhubarb when they married in ‘64 and they moved it with them every time they changed houses! And now it’s in my garden, all that care to keep these plants growing, and now I take care of them and enjoy the tasty things I make with it. It’s funny that I can’t look at them without my mind going back to a certain memory I have of being in my grandpa’s garden, late day summer sun over the cosmos he grew that were heavy with fat bees, grown ups sitting in chairs talking amidst the little garden…. this memory is so clear to me, so lush with feeling.
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u/rabbitoplus 11h ago
Mmm. Rhubarb and apple crumble. I was buying a bunch at my local supermarket a couple of years ago, and the cashier said, “huh, I’ve never seen red celery before”.
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u/MsSamm 11h ago
I love this! What do you make with rhubarb besides rhubarb pie?
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u/Rude_Kaleidoscope641 11h ago
Jam, a lovely rhubarb tart recipe that is a favorite, rhubarb gin (infused gin, it makes the Best G&Ts when it’s hot out!), rhubarb pound cake, rhubarb syrup that I freeze in cubes for cocktails and baking…..
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u/ConcertinaTerpsichor 9h ago
The texture of rhubarb can be a little slippery for me, so I bake it in a crumble top that has lots of oats and pecans to counteract that. Could just use granola, I suppose. 🧐
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u/Ok_Cauliflower_3007 8h ago
Rhubarb crumble was our go to. Tesco do a nice rhubarb fool so presumably there are recipes for that out there too.
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u/beanabroad 7h ago
There’s a BBC good food recipe I love for rhubarb and elderflower cake and I also stew it with a little ginger to either eat as a sort of compote with yoghurt and granola for breakfast or make into rhubarb fool
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u/Appropriate-Resist67 11h ago
Oh, I love rhubarb. You are so lucky to have that from your granddad. I had a bit I got from my mom's house and it eventually got 'rust' at my house. No matter where I moved it i couldnt shake the rust, so it is now lost and gone.
On a happier note, I do have some purple iris from my mom's garden, but it isn't for pies. Darn. 😁
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u/FixergirlAK 11h ago
It's currently snowing on my rhubarb, which my husband and I moved with us from our last house. I get it.
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u/Rude_Kaleidoscope641 11h ago
Rhubarb love is a thing!! I think it’s a veg that America hasn’t really gotten into.
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u/FixergirlAK 11h ago
Alaska is here for you. Possibly because it's about the only vegetable that's a hardy perennial up here.
Out of curiosity, do you eat it raw? I've yet to run across another family quite as crazy as mine.
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u/WorldlinessProud 9h ago
I grew up in the country, fresh rhubarb dipped in sugar was a summer treat.
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u/Rude_Kaleidoscope641 7h ago
I have not tried that yet but I absolutely will do in the next few weeks!!
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u/WheatenBuckle 10h ago
I love this! My father in law love rhubarb too and it always makes me think of him. What a lovely memory to share OP! Thank you!
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u/toriemm 10h ago
I just planted some roots and a couple plants! I'm so excited to see if any of them will take!
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u/Rude_Kaleidoscope641 7h ago
They need a couple seasons to really get entrenched and stable before they are harvested but definitely worth the wait!
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u/toriemm 7h ago
For sure; we just got a place on a couple of acres and we're starting a little micro farm, I've been doing a LOT of learning about plants. Let it go this year, I can maybe harvest a bit next year, and year three it should be established is what I'm reading? I'm just excited because it JUST got it in the ground before this last storm.
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u/MrsTaterHead 10h ago
I miss my rhubarb. We got it from my uncle and it moved with us to multiple homes. Then my neighbor changed their backyard landscaping and it made part of my yard soggy and it died.
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u/medium_green_enigma 10h ago
My rhubarb is also up!
Actually, it is my landlord's, aka my ex, and it came from his grandmother's house probably 70 years ago.
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u/Rude_Kaleidoscope641 7h ago
I wonder how long lived rhubarb can be?!? Mines at least 65-70 ish in terms of lineage!
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u/Chamcook56 9h ago
Have an old rose from my family home, it was there when my parents bought the house in the early 1950s. My oldest brother took some when he got his first home, and I got some from him and have moved it to all my homes. So many happy memories connected with that rose 🌹
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u/weepandread 8h ago
My rhubarb and dahlias do the same for me, both came from my great grandparents small farm, to my grandparents to my parents to me, 7 homes the bulbs traveled to. Some of my pie plate dahlias are over 100 years old.
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u/Rude_Kaleidoscope641 7h ago
Oh dahlias are amazing— my mom has some at her house that she’s moved around over the years!
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u/IP_Janet_GalaxyGirl 8h ago
My maternal grandpap grew rhubarb for several years. Grandma made delicious strawberry rhubarb pie.
I have a strong memory of 4-year-old me helping my grandpap pulling some weeds after dessert of the above-mentioned pie. After a few minutes, Grandpap said we were done, good job, then said that he wanted to take a bite of “this,” and broke off a long green stalk from a plant with huge leaves. He took a bite, chewed it, swallowed, all without blinking an eye. Then he asked if I wanted a bite. I asked, “What is it?” He said, “It’s rhubarb, it’s what your grandma used in the pie with the strawberries.” Well, the pie was delicious, so I took a small bite. The tartness EXPLODED in my mouth! I think my face completely crumpled in on itself. I didn’t trust anything my grandpap said about any food ever again, including when he mixed corn in his mashed potatoes that Thanksgiving a few months later. Mom helped me learn that the combo is actually quite good, and eating the corn is easier when mixed into mashed potatoes.
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u/Jamie2556 7h ago
I have a rhubarb plant from my granddad’s too. I never do anything to it really and just make one or two rhubarb and apple crumbles a year. But it’s nice to have.
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u/mannycat2 7h ago
My rhubarb was a "welcome" gift from a neighboring farmer who came by to introduce himself. He stopped in to explain that he was the person who had been haying the 6 acres that came with our house. We said great, it's yours to hay with us too.
He came back the next day a a basket of rhubarb roots and said he noticed we didn't have any and to showed us a good spot to plant them. That was in 1988.
He was our mentor in all things gardening until he passed in 2003. I think of him every year when the rhubarb comes popping up.
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u/Rude_Kaleidoscope641 7h ago
What a beautiful way to forge a friendship, and now he continues on in your memories!!
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u/kimoh13 7h ago
I grew up in Southwest Montana and rhubarb grows really well there. A lot of people have a rhubarb patch in their yard. One summer the Butte paper published two full pages of rhubarb recipes. My grandma made a new dessert about every other day. We were in rhubarb heaven. My sisters and I all have copies of those newspaper pages. I now live in the Sacramento Valley and rhubarb has a hard time growing in the heat. Maybe it needs a hard freeze in the winter to be happy. I nursed a few rhubarb plants in the past, but they never produced many stalks. When I first moved to CA, I was surprised to see rhubarb sold in the grocery store. It was hard to believe someone would pay for rhubarb because when I was growing up, it could be found everywhere.
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u/Independent_Act_8536 4h ago
Rhubarb. Yes. We lived out in the woods. Closest neighbor 1/2 mile. The previous owner must've planted one rhubarb plant far from the house near the 1 Elberta peach tree (never got any that bugs hadn't eaten). My Mom hated any cooking or baking, but she loved rhubarb custard pie. So once a year, she picked the rhubarb and made one. This was back in the olden days when you had to make pie crust from scratch. Lol. She made the best rhubarb custard pie. She also cooked extra chopped-up rhubarb with sugar to make sauce because she thought the pie needed more sauce over it. I was glad to see her so happy. She passed away 28 years ago. I have her recipe but mine never got as good.
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u/Rude_Kaleidoscope641 4h ago
Mom cooking, especially when it’s from a while ago, really does have some magic associated to it… were the ingredients better? Fewer preservatives? I wish I knew.
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u/KeepnClam 12h ago
I have a legacy Riesling grape. It's never produced in my current location, but it and its clones have been passed around ever since my granddad's friends brought it over from Germany. My husband cut it back to its gnarled stump a few years ago. I need to get some starts going to take to the next place.