What is rhubarb?!
What is rhubarb?
I've heard of it before, but have never eaten it or seen it. If anyone can explain it to me, thanks! Even a link to a picture would be appreciative!
Answers:
http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/
everything you've ever wanted to know about rhubarb. It's very very tart. I tasted a piece when I was little without any sugar on it at all and I am still traumatized by it. I won't touch the stuff now.
It's a vegetable. Here is the blurb and picture
it is a long stick of a sour,tart fruit. red/green in colour. it needs to be stewed with lots of sugar to taste nice. can be used in a variety of desserts
i've wondered the very same thing....i know that they use it in pie recipes especially with strawberries.
A vegetable people eat.....
My parents always grew rhubarb in your backyard, so I grew up having it all the time. It goes VERY well with strawberries or other fruit in pies and other sweet confections, and makes a very different, but yummy, jam. Mmmm....
Just like lemon, it's nasty to eat on its own. But stewed with sugar and mixed into things it's delicious!
it's an edible plant, it's used mostly in europe for cooking. they used it there especially for jam. a delight!!
Rhubarb is a 'vegetable' that we eat like a fruit, because it's 'very bitter' if it's not cooked with a lot of sugar or doesn't have some 'non-sugar' added to it after it is cooked. Rhubarb 'grows' as a 'low bush' ... the 'reddish stems' are the ONLY 'edible part' and the leaves are broad, green, and 'round' with only one leaf per stem. If you are in a grocery store, you can find it, but it's usually 'just the stems' because the LEAVES are toxic if eaten. Look for something that it around a foot long, reddish/dark pink, and is about 3/4-1-1/2" thick ... and look at the 'signs' and see if you can't find one that says it's Rhubarb. If you want to 'try cooking it' it's REALLY EASY ... wash the stems, cut off the 'dried out' ends (about 1/4-1/2" will do, and 'chop' it in about 2" long 'segments. Put it into a pan and add 'just enough water' to 'cover it' but not enough to 'go higher' in the pan. Put the pan onto the stove and bring the water to a full boil and then 'turn it down' and let it 'simmer' for about 10-15 minutes ... your 'rhubarb' is 'cooked' when you can see the 'string' in your pieces wanting to 'break away' .. let it cool, then add your 'sweetener' a little bit at a time 'to taste' ... I like mine with just a 'touch' of sugar, but you may 'need' a lot more. Take a small bowl and eat it 'plain' ... if you like that, you can 'move on' to other things, like making 'rhubarb bread' (like banana bread but with cooked rhubarb instead of the mashed bananas) or you can make a 'rhubarb pie.' MOST people think of 'rhubarb in a pie' ONLY with fresh strawberries in a 'cold cornstarch' to make it 'thicker' ... but my husband (who is a chef) makes the BEST 'just rhubarb pie' ... I love both fruits, but I like them 'separately' so he's made this pie for me every summer when there's rhubarb for sale in the stores.
But let me tell you about a neighbor's toddler and my garden. I had lots of 'edibles' for all of the neighboring kids to eat, but this one little one was ALWAYS getting the rhubarb, and she'd eat it RAW right up to the 'leaf' on the end, straight from the garden. Every day, I'd look out and see her sitting happily next to the rhubarb patch, munching away. She's nearly 18 now, and I am 'writing this' for you to 'remember her' and those days in my life ... here's hoping you can go 'searching' and can introduce rhubarb to your whole family ... because it's not just 'tasty' but is also very high in vitamin C, A, and B and has lots of 'good minerals' ... and it's a lot more fun to eat rhubarb than it is to take a 'multivitamin pill' ...
a root
rhu・barb
NOUN:
1: Any of several plants of the genus Rheum, especially R. rhabarbarum, having long green or reddish acidic leafstalks that are edible when sweetened and cooked. Also called pie plant .
2: The dried, bitter-tasting rhizome and roots of Rheum palmatum or R. officinale of eastern Asia, used as a laxative.
Informal
3: A quarrel, fight, or heated discussion.
Rhubarb is actually a vegetable, but is often used in food as a fruit. In the United States until the 1940s it was considered a vegetable. It was reclassified as a fruit when US customs officials, baffled by the foreign food, decided it should be classified according to the way it was eaten.
The plant is indigenous to Asia, and many suggest that it was often used by the Mongolians; particularly, the Tatars tribes of the Gobi. The plant has grown wild along the banks of the Volga for centuries; it may have been brought there by Asiatic tribes, such as the Scythians, Huns, Magyars or Mongols. Varieties of rhubarb have a long history as medicinal plants in traditional Chinese medicine, but the use of rhubarb as food is a relatively recent innovation, first recorded in 17th century England, after affordable sugar became available to common people.
Rhubarb is now grown in many areas, primarily for its fleshy petioles, commonly known as rhubarb sticks or stalks. In temperate climates rhubarb is one of the first food plants to be ready for harvest, usually in mid to late Spring (April/May in the Northern Hemisphere, October/November in the Southern). The petioles can be cooked in a variety of ways. Stewed, they yield a tart sauce that can be eaten with sugar or used as filling for pies (see rhubarb pie), tarts, and crumbles. This common use led to the slang term for rhubarb, "pie plant". In Germany, this slang term is also used; the common name being Rhabarber in German. Cooked with strawberries as a sweetener, rhubarb makes excellent jam. It can also be used to make wine. Recently, it has been used in new age sandwiches.
Rhubarb leaves contain poisonous substances. Rhubarb leaf poisoning is most often caused by oxalic acid, a corrosive and nephrotoxic acid that is abundantly present in many plants. The LD50 (median lethal dose) for pure oxalic acid is predicted to be about 375 mg/kg body weight, or about 25 g for a 65 kg (~140 lb) human. While the oxalic acid content of rhubarb leaves can vary, it averages about 0.5%, so a rather unlikely five kilograms of the extremely sour leaves would have to be consumed to reach an LD50 dose. In the petioles, the amount of oxalic acid is much lower, especially when harvested before mid-June (in the northern hemisphere), but it is still enough to cause slightly rough teeth.
The roots and stems are rich in anthraquinones, such as emodin and rhein. These substances are cathartic and laxative, which explains the sporadic abuse of Rhubarb as a slimming agent. Anthraquinones are yellow or orange and may colour the urine.