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Stick with rhubarb – it's the latest diet essential
Rhubarb, reminiscent of nursery food and too often found under a layer of lumpy custard, is now fashionable and booming thanks to its discovery by health-conscious eaters. Sheena Hastings reports.
WE think of it as a fruit, but it's actually a vegetable. The first record of its use was in 2700BC in China, where rhubarb was used in medicine for its purgative qualities.
The Greek Discorides, one of the most celebrated pharmacologists of ancient times, spoke of the root "rha" or "rheon", which came from the Bosphorous, the strait that separates Europe from Asia.
Down the centuries, parts of the rhubarb plant have been used to treat everything from stomach ache to venereal disease.
Rhubarb likes cold, wet weather and, having migrated to Britain in the 18th century, thrives in the "golden triangle" between Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield, where much of the vegetable sold in this country is grown.
Its heyday was in the 1940s and 50s, when there were 200 growers in the area.
Now there are only 17, but they are working flat out to meet the demands of supermarkets, small shops and restaurants, who are finding that health-conscious consumers are lapping up the magical properties of the delicious red stick with the poisonous yellow leaves.
Yorkshire-based supermarket Morrisons reports that sales have grown by 100 per cent in the last year, faster than any other vegetable. Spokeswoman Claire Taylor (a devotee of her grandfather's rhubarb jelly) says enough rhubarb was sold in January by the chain to make a crumble the size of an Olympic swimming pool.
"Business has been growing for the last 10 years, after years before that when we could only continue to grow rhubarb thanks to the other veg and fruit we grew," says Janet Oldroyd-Hume, of Oldroyd's Farm at Carlton, near Wakefield. Her family have grown rhubarb for four generations. "Just over a decade ago we were thinking of dropping rhubarb, business was so bad."
"This year demand has exceeded all expectations. We've had to increase production to 1,000 tonnes compared to 500 tonnes five years ago."
Rhubarb is expensive to grow, like chickory and asparagus, requiring painstaking methods and a great deal of attention.
Mrs Oldroyd-Hulme, who eats a raw stick as a snack, puts the new popularity of rhubarb down to its properties as a "superfood", as identified by proponents of the trendy GI Diet and other diet regimes. It is low in carbohydrate, high in vitamins, and is also said to speed up the metabolism and aid weight loss.
"I have an underactive thyroid and need to watch my weight," says Mrs Oldroyd-Hulme. "For breakfast I chop the rhubarb, put it in a pan with freshly-squeezed orange juice, and heat until the juice starts to bubble. I then eat it with a low-fat orange yoghurt." She also says that eating the vegetable has got rid of her sugar craving and turned her into a "savoury person".
The renaissance of rhubarb, which is available nine months of the year thanks to indoor and outdoor cultivation, has led to an explosion in imaginative ways to cook it. Celebrity chefs like Anthony Worrall Thompson and Phil Vickery extol its healthful properties. Nigella Lawson swoons over its sensuality and comforting qualities.
Louise McCrimmon, sous-chef at Harvey Nichols 4th Floor Restaurant in Leeds, says the restaurant always has dishes made with winter rhubarb on the menu early in the year.
"They're very popular, and people come in looking for them now," says McCrimmon, whose private rhubarb consumption includes rhubarb smoothies and rhubarb vodka.
"It's delicious as a liqueur, or in a fizzy drink. You just crush the raw rhubarb with sugar and leave overnight.
"The next day, add a bottle of vodka, and put in a jar for two-three weeks. Drain the liquid, and leave it to mellow for a month – if you can keep your hands off it that long."
Piemakers around Yorkshire
are cottoning on to the new trendiness of rhubarb, by concoting rhubarb and pork pies, and cutting-edge cooks are pairing its fibrous sharpness with oily fish or lamb.
At Harvey Nichols, goodies include rhubarb steamed pudding, rhubarb brule and rhubarb meringue pie, served with rhubarb sorbet.
At one time powder made from rhubarb was used to soften leather and colour hair. What a waste
sheena.hastings@ypn.co.uk
Rhubarb Facts
n Rhubarb is classified as a vegetable because it has no seeds
n There are more than 20 species of rhubarb
n "Forced" rhubarb (grown indoors in the dark) is harvested by candlelight so as not to affect the quality of the crop
n The West Riding of Yorkshire is the main centre of "forced" rhubarb cultivation in the world
n Rhubarb leaves contain the poisonous substance oxalate
n Rhubarb leaves can be used to make an organic pesticide for any leaf-eating insect
n Rhubarb is a natural laxative
n Thicker stalks and dark red colour are the ideal to look for when buying rhubarb.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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