I have a little barn in my front yard which is really our pump house and I'm thinking that would be a good place to try and get some to grow. I'm putting rhubarb on my grocery list now because you guys have made me hungry for it.
http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/growing In the United states it grows best in the northern states from Maine south to Illinois and west to Washington state. Once planted, rhubarb plantings remain productive for 8 to 15 years.
I always remember my grandmother growing lots of Rhubarb, there was always an upturned bucket involved which you placed over the plant to force it, personally I can't stand the stuff it's too sour for my taste buds.
I know. There was a lady on 180 who had it growing for years next to her outdoor wash room. I don't know if it's still there or not. At lest I can buy it at the store although I haven't in years.
@Terry Page , yes incredibly sour! We used to eat stalks with salt on them, I don't know how I managed. When I tried it as an adult, there was no way! I was bring faecetous when I told Sheldon he was "in for a treat". It needs 40 pounds of sugar to be palatable!
Yes, it does have to be sweetened. I also think in the Hungarian strudel it might have been mixed with some other fruit but I'm not sure.
As a kid, we used to eat it just as it came, but everyone uses sugar when they make it into a pie. If I remember correctly, mom would sometimes make rhubarb pie but, more often, the rhubarb would be mixed with another fruit for the purpose of adding tartness.
The most common pie in my area is strawberry rhubarb pie. Rhubarb does have a flavor, if you can drill down past the sour that is good but can't describe.
We had strawberry rhubarb pie last night, from the bakery. Since she has never made, the question I always pose to my wife is this. Is strawberry rhubarb pie made from strawberries and rhubarb or is it made from strawberry rhubarb, which is a specific variety of rhubarb? My mother, I think, would often mix strawberries and rhubarb into a pie, and I believe we only had one variety of rhubarb, and I don't know if anyone really knew what that was, but there is a variety of rhubarb known as strawberry rhubarb. In the pie we got from the bakery, I couldn't see anything that looked like strawberries in it, as it all looked like rhubarb to me, but the recipes I have seen call for strawberries and rhubarb.
Thank you for that @Sheldon Scott ..it appears to have little fruit on it so I'm guessing that's the part people eat
The pie I know has both chunks of rhubarb and real strawberries in it. The bakery is obviously as low quality as is the one in my town. Who know what they put in it? Since it's not strawberry season yet, maybe they used jam or some other cheat. If it tasted good to you though, who cares.
The part of poke salat that is eaten is the leaves, and often the stems, and it is picked when it is small. I have never eaten any myself, but when I lived in Missouri, we had neighbors who knew about eating it. Since I was new there, they were explaing to me that it was poisonous, berries and all. However, she said that if you cut it when it is short and tender, then you boil it, changing the water several times to leach out the poisons, that it was an edible green. Since there are plenty of edible greens that aren't likely to kill you if you don't cook it correctly, it never made any sense to me to eat one that just might kill me. We have some growing in our yard here, and in the lot behind us. I usually chop them down with the weedeater when they are small, although (for a weed) they are not bad looking. http://www.aihd.ku.edu/recipes/poke_salad.html