Forced rhubarb, a vegetable deprived of sunlight, is having a renaissance (2019)

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20190424-the-english-vegetable-picked-by-candlelight

by cellover • 3 years ago

183 122 3 years ago

Mentioned in the article, but forced rhubarb grows so fast you can hear it. This soundcloud file suggests hearing it in a darkened vault by candlelight would be extraordinary experience!

https://soundcloud.com/rhubarb-rhubarb-rhubarb/a-mass-of-pop...

fayten• 3 years ago

That is wild, thanks for sharing the soundcloud link!

itronitron• 3 years ago

Well, they definitely need to add rhubarb to Minecraft now.

darknavi• 3 years ago

1.22 - Strawberry and rhubarb pie update

some_random• 3 years ago

The year is 2028

Minecraft update 1.22 part 1 (of 5) comes out, rhubarb and rhubarb seeds were added

The structure that rhubarb seeds are found will be added in part 2 (scheduled for 2029)

Rhubarb pie will be added in part 4 (scheduled 2032)

It's a mid tier food with worse saturation than chicken

catsarebetter• 3 years ago

That is wild, wonder if there's an asmr for it

ndsipa_pomu2• 3 years ago

That reminds me of cauliflowers squeaking as they grow with their florets squeezing against themselves.

frogperson• 3 years ago

On s calm morning, you can also hear corn growing.

refulgentis2• 3 years ago

I don't quite understand: constantly, for days? It seems there would be a finite # of buds to burst, and especially at the frequency (4-6 hz?) and relatively finite size of the dark greenhouse...I'm really surprised this is a phenomenon for more than hours. There must be a TON of buds?

plexxer• 3 years ago

The article stated half of a million, so very likely yes.

johtso• 3 years ago

Reminds me of hearing the seedpods of gorse cracking and popping in the sunshine.

Caligatio• 3 years ago

I was actually able to visit the annual Rhubarb festival down in Wetherby and it was much more interesting than expected. In addition to learning about the unusual growing method, it was also surprising the number of rhubarb products for sale (like enough to fill an entire market).

My biggest take-away was that Slingbys Rhubarb Gin is delicious!

MeteorMarc• 3 years ago

Much sweeter sounds suspicious. I love ordinary rhubarb but add baking soda to bind much of the acid and then still lots of sugar.

mtsr2• 3 years ago

I’ve read one needs to be careful with that because the resulting oxalate isn’t healthy (increases kidney stone risk, for example).

pachico2• 3 years ago

I live in Spain but I had the chance to travel to northern Europe dozens of times, where I learned to love rhubarb.

I really would love rhubarb to grow here but it is almost impossible to find, even in big cities.

JWoolfenden• 3 years ago

my wife got a patch growing in the back garden after a few failed attempts now we have lots, it's also readily available in supermarkets here in the UK. https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/rhubarb-crumble

jeromenerf• 3 years ago

Very common in France if you ever drive by. Usually sold as a small 30cm^3 plant which will probably grown up to 1.5m in diameter the first year. I used to have 7 in 12m2. It’s also possible to grow from seeds, which you can buy online. It will require some dedication.

IME a very easy perennial, if you can prevent drought. Plant and forget. Like artichokes.

pachico2• 3 years ago

From what I know, not everywhere in France but in the north. It was impossible to me to find this month in Occitane, at least.

Daub• 3 years ago

Time for mention of the rhubarb triangle... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhubarb_Triangle

From the Wikipedia article...

The Rhubarb Triangle is a 9-square-mile (23 km2) area of West Yorkshire, England between Wakefield, Morley, and Rothwell famous for producing early forced rhubarb. It includes Kirkhamgate, East Ardsley, Stanley, Lofthouse and Carlton. The Rhubarb Triangle was originally much bigger, covering an area between Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield. From the 1900s to 1930s, the rhubarb industry expanded and at its peak covered an area of about 30 square miles (78 km2).

quickthrower2• 3 years ago

They need to Champagnify that

rsynnott• 3 years ago

They did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_food_an...

(PDOs granted pre-Brexit continue to be in force, though new ones can't be granted for UK stuff)

mostthingsweb• 3 years ago

I thought you meant turn it into an alcoholic beverage, so I looked it up and apparently there is such a thing as rhubarb wine.

mongol• 3 years ago

How do you like to eat rhubarb? I mostly know it from rhubarb pie

askonomm• 3 years ago

I grew up eating the Rhubarb plant by tipping the root side (stem?) In sugar and just eating it like that. It's very sour like that, which as a kid I loved.

askvictor2• 3 years ago

Same here - the sugar offsets the sourness just enough. Is it a Polish/Eastern European thing?

Serenacula• 3 years ago

The classic is rhubarb crumble, a baked dessert typically eaten with custard. It's delightfully sweet and sour, a favourite of mine as a kid.

conradfr• 3 years ago

Also rhubarb jam.

wsc981• 3 years ago

In The Netherlands ate Rhubarb for dinner. Cooked with crumbled rusk (beschuit [0]) mixed with sugar and eaten with cooked potatoes. And some meat (e.g. steak or sausage).

The crumbled rusk is meant to give the cooked rhubarb a thicker structure and the sugar is meant to counter the sourness.

Quite delicious imho.

———

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusk#Netherlands_and_Belgium...

tonyedgecombe• 3 years ago

It needs a lot of sugar to become palatable.

bakuninsbart• 3 years ago

Since it is quite sour and fresh, apart from sweet dishes like pie or crumble, it pairs quite well with heavy meat dishes like venison. Basically you make a glaze with the rhubarb and can use the stems as a garnish/veggie side. Still needs quite a bit of sugar to tone down the sourness, but it is great.

In general you can often use it as an alternative for lemon zest or juice. I'd say though that it is one of those veggies you buy when it grows locally. I love rhubarb, but if you have to import it, there is probably a better local alternative.

maxweylandt• 3 years ago

I recently learned of, and attempted, an Iranian savory stew of beans, herbs, and rhubarb. I enjoyed it!

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023153-khoresh-rivas-sa...

pineaux• 3 years ago

https://archive.is/XX7yN

Genmutant• 3 years ago

In Germany it's eaten either as a pie - which is usually quite dry and with crumble or meringue on top [0] - or as a compote.

[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhabarberkuchen#/media/Datei:R...

bregma• 3 years ago

Rhubarb pie. Rhubarb cake. Rhubarb bread. Rhubarb cookies. Rhubarb crisp/crumble/grunt. Rhubarb jam. Rhubarb chutney. Stewed rhubarb (used anywhere you'd use applesauce including standalone in a bowl, with plain yogurt, swirled into rice pudding, or baked over pork chops). Raw rhubarb dipped in sugar.

We have a very productive rhubarb patch. Right beside the zucchini patch.

ndsipa_pomu2• 3 years ago

I just stew it and then eat it with custard.

Chop it into pieces, put it in a pan with some sugar and possible a little bit of water. Heat it up and the sugar should help draw out some liquid and cook it until the pieces become soft or disintegrate. Takes about 5-10 minutes.

lmc• 3 years ago

Stewed, with Greek yoghurt and honey.

noefingway• 3 years ago

Pie, jam, crumble, stewed over vanilla ice cream and (best of all) Slingsbury Rhubarb Gin!

deafpolygon2• 3 years ago

Remember: never rub another man's rhubarbs.

chungy• 3 years ago

Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?

veave• 3 years ago

I was also thinking of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC1a48_mCVM

deafpolygon2• 3 years ago

Batman haters, here.

fsckboy• 3 years ago

reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FBQetJqAwk

rusanu• 3 years ago

Remember that rhubarb leaves are actually poisonous due to oxalic acid (I've seen quotes of 2-5 kg od leaves being a lethal dose).

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/does-rhub...

vanderZwan4• 3 years ago

Oxalic acid is poisonous? Should I stop eating spinach then? Oh, looks like the article mentions this actually:

Chard and spinach, in fact, contain even more oxalic acid than rhubarb—respectively, 700 and 600 mg/100 g, as opposed to rhubarb’s restrained 500. Rhubarb’s killer reputation apparently dates to World War I, when rhubarb leaves were recommended on the home front as an alternative food. At least one death was reported in the literature, an event that rhubarb has yet to live down.
Oxalic acid does its dirty work by binding to calcium ions and yanking them out of circulation. In the worst-case scenario, it removes enough essential calcium from the blood to be lethal; in lesser amounts, it forms insoluble calcium oxalate, which can end up in the kidneys as kidney stones. In general, however, rhubarb leaves don’t pose much of a threat. Since a lethal dose of oxalic acid is somewhere between 15 and 30 grams, you’d have to eat several pounds of rhubarb leaves at a sitting to reach a toxic oxalic acid level, which is a lot more rhubarb leaves than most people care to consume.

That actually sounds like I should be careful with how I consume my spinach (or chard or rhubarb), but more for the sake of kidney stones. I wonder if adding milk or other calcium-rich foods helps?

[one search for calcium-rich foods later]

So spinach is apparently rich in calcium? I'm getting really confused now.

mtsr2• 3 years ago

There’s not much you can do since adding chalk (which used to be common for both spinach and rhubarb) just creates the oxalate in the pan instead of your body and you can’t remove it. But cooking with lots of water (very short in the case of spinach) and throwing out the water does help to reduce the amount of oxalic acid.

adrian_b11• 3 years ago

No, spinach is only rich in oxalic acid, not in calcium.

No vegetable is really rich in calcium, which is why it is recommended for vegans to take calcium supplements.

After you ingest oxalic acid, it will find calcium in your body, where it is abundant in blood and in the other extracellular fluids (like sodium and chloride, most calcium stays outside the cells).

Too much oxalic acid will form insoluble precipitates of calcium oxalate, i.e. small stones, which may happen to form in undesirable places, from where they cannot be eliminated.

jokethrowaway• 3 years ago

Probably in small doses (like what our ancestors 20000 years ago probably eat when they couldn't find better food) it won't do too much damage. Cooking will also remove some oxalates.

Overall these are plants defense mechanisms. We know they work well as anti bug measures, ruminants have more complex digestive systems to break them down; it's not always clear what prolonged use on humans will cause.

Carnivores advocate against eating oxalates rich food and when you start a diet with no oxalates you will experience some weird symptoms, you can read about oxalates dumping: https://www.doctorkiltz.com/oxalate-dumping

There are plenty of people with "auto immune incurable" diseases who stopped eating vegetables and were relieved of their symptoms.

I personally started experiencing problems after 10 years of a 95% vegan diet and went carnivore, getting rid of a number of weird health issues I couldn't explain.

pvaldes• 3 years ago

Oxalic acid is poisonous?

If you eat too much of it, yes. All Oxalis leaves are edible but only in the correct (small) dose.

jrmg• 3 years ago

This is still confusing to me. Does it mean that despite the ubiquity of the warnings, I can actually cook and consume rhubarb leaves like spinach?

DropInIn4• 3 years ago

Don't downplay oxalic acid.

There are many things which have it, particularly in the wild edible category, and those who have dietary restrictions which limit them to mostly such foods have serious consequences from the presence of it.

I know first hand it can do serious harm.

Do not downplay it.

Modified3019• 3 years ago

Yeah oxalic acid plus calcium is calcium oxalate, aka the most common form of kidney stones. Some people also seem to be sensitive to oxalates for whatever reason, and find improvements in health when broadly removing sources from their diets.

The trick is to bind the oxalates before they get absorbed in the body and require removal. So making things like traditional creamed spinach (or other things like turnip or collard greens) removes the potential hazard from chronic intake.

Incidentally the whey portion of dairy also seems to chelate the form of vitamin B12 found in plants, making it much more bioavailable. The casein portion of dairy doesn’t seem to have this same effect.

It’s fascinating to see how the preparation for so many traditional foods basically mitigates the sources of low level toxicity issues while increasing nutrient update, when as a “modern” person I tend to look at it from the perspective of taste.

Xylakant• 3 years ago

The article mentions the content is 500mg of oxalic acid / 100g and says the deadly dose is at 15 - 30g. That makes for 3-6kg of rhubarb leaves. Quite a serving, if you ask me.

In the original British understatement:

Since a lethal dose of oxalic acid is somewhere between 15 and 30 grams, you’d have to eat several pounds of rhubarb leaves at a sitting to reach a toxic oxalic acid level, which is a lot more rhubarb leaves than most people care to consume.

lostlogin• 3 years ago

That’s more oxalic acid than I’d have guessed.

Treating bees for varroa more takes about 25g of oxalic acid per box of bees. I’d kind of hoped the leaves might have more oxalic, then I could have tried putting rhubarb leaves in there instead of battling fumes, glycerine and strips of paper.

sergioisidoro3• 3 years ago

That is why so many rhubarb dishes (rhubarb pies, and desserts) are so often served with ice cream and vanilla sauce based on milk products.

The calcium in those neutralize any potential issues of the oxalic acid.

lgsymons2• 3 years ago

I would be interested to see a source for the claim that milk products are paired with rhubarb for that reason.

hombre_fatal8• 3 years ago

This doesn't make sense to me. 200g of cooked rhubarb already has almost 400mg of calcium which is almost half of the 1000mg daily US recommendation and more than half of the 700mg daily UK recommendation.

Thinking dairy is the only source of calcium is meme-nutrition like eating bananas for potassium especially when talking about a food already high in calcium.

ascorbic• 3 years ago

I think more likely it's because they taste delicious together

qingcharles2• 3 years ago

I've lived in fear of rhubarb leaves for 40 years since my Mum warned me about them. We used to grow rhubarb in our garden in England, which I loved, but was terrified of one day being poisoned by the leaves. Took me this long to find out I really didn't have anything to be afraid of, thank you.

teaearlgraycold• 3 years ago

I spontaneously became allergic to rhubarb in my teens. Damn shame. It was my favorite pie!

DropInIn4• 3 years ago

If it's been more than a decade get tested to see if it's gone.

I had a huge list of allergies developed in my late teens but now they're gone after a couple decades, due to natural age related changes in biochemistry according to the docs.

askvictor2• 3 years ago

White asparagus is similarly grown in the dark.

NoZebra120vClip• 3 years ago

According to my father, "rhubarb" is what the extras say in crowd scenes in TV and film. They mumble, "rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb" and it gives the impression of muted, indistinct background conversations.

By the same token, the choral singer who forgets the lyrics during a performance can sing "watermelon, watermelon" until she gets to a place where she recalls the words. The philosophy is that, as long as you get a convincing vowel in there, people will believe anything you sing.

Adlopa• 3 years ago

There’s a whole film about ‘Rhubarb’, prompted in part, I think, by that premise.

https://youtu.be/EOiwJkMvIYI

qingcharles2• 3 years ago

Also "peas and carrots, peas and carrots."

Source: was married to a professional actor; saw this used on sets many times.

bmer• 3 years ago

This kind of sounds like torture, even though it's directed at plants rather than animals or other humans...

Luc• 3 years ago

Belgian endive is another vegetable grown in the dark. Vertical farming, no LEDs needed, harvest in 25 days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPr06HDnttU

whynotmaybe• 3 years ago

Traditional recipe https://www.meilleurduchef.com/en/recipe/endive-ham-gratin.h...

efields2• 3 years ago

But first the crop needs a whole season in the sun. You grow normal green endive, pull the whole plant, chop the head, then you’re growing the second flush in the dark from the root mass. Effectively using all the stored energy from the root for one final round of leaf production, but no light prevents photosynthesis and you get Belgian endive.

NotYourLawyer• 3 years ago

Just like with rhubarb.

frereubu• 3 years ago

This is an enjoyable article from 2017 about the role of Edinburgh in the history of rhubarb in the UK. (I think I may even have originally discovered it on HN). Abstract:

Rhubarb was grown and used throughout China for thousands of years. It then found its way to St Petersburg where the Romanovs developed a flourishing trade in the plant to the rest of Europe. James Mounsey, a physician to the Tsar, brought back seeds from Russia to Scotland at considerable risk to himself. He passed some of the seeds to Alexander Dick and John Hope. Both these physicians then grew rhubarb at Prestonfield and the Botanic Garden (both in Edinburgh), respectively. Eventually rhubarb, in the form of Gregory’s powder, became a common and popular medicine throughout the UK.

[PDF] https://www.rcpe.ac.uk/sites/default/files/jrcpe_47_1_lee.pd...

darkclouds3• 3 years ago

Oxalate sticks.

riwsky• 3 years ago

Massive kudos to the BBC, for the editorial discipline required here to avoid "[…] is having its moment in the sun"

Forced rhubarb, a vegetable deprived of sunlight, is having a renaissance (2019)

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