Rhubarb Rhubarb

My lack of success in growing rhubarb has always been a great disappointment to me.

The prized and prolific clump of rhubarb from my late Father in Laws back yard was, with reverence and respect, transported to our house as part of the legacy of the quiet but very wise and humorous man after his untimely departure.

I transplanted it in the most fertile part of the garden and in a spot which would receive the best and appropriate proportions of sunlight and rainfall . I had great expectations for the rhubarb to thrive and return to its huge productivity. It was not to be.

There was a brief flourish as the first nutrients from the clay soils seeped into the tender stems but the perfect nursery conditions for this rather exotic addition to our outlook from the distant kitchen window could not be achieved. The plant, which originated from Mongolia and Siberia, was genetically disposed to pretty harsh conditions but not those in our back garden.

I took this as being an affront to the memory of George. We would not, soon or ever, be celebrating his life to the piping hot aroma of a home grown rhubarb crumble or stewed with a rich, syrupy sweet sauce . As a child I would relish the treat of sliced, raw rhubarb stalks for dipping in a large, teeth rotting mound of Tate and Lyle caster sugar. Even that would remain a distant memory.

I sometimes lie awake in the early hours asking myself and my God what more I could have done to encourage the rhubarb to take root.

Apparently, my main problem was geographical in that I lived well outside of the Rhubarb Triangle- a 9 square mile area in West, and not East ,Yorkshire which once produced 90% of the world's supply of the stuff.

In my opinion they also cheated a bit in that the production process involved 'forced' cultivation methods. This practice was developed in the early 1800's. In addition to the cold, wet weather conditions which prevailed between Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield these same large, sprawling urban areas produced huge amounts of human and animal based waste. A fleet of wagons would, on a daily basis, haul the excrement or 'night soil' from the packed and stacked slums and well to do houses alike and take it into the surrounding countryside for use as natural fertiliser. Horse manure was also abundant and the blended material including discarded wool debris from the commercial mills was put to good use.

The first years of a rhubarb plant are tough. They are left out in the fields for a minimum of two to two and a half years without being harvested in order for the sunlight catalysed absorption of nutrients to take place. As the winter months approach at the end of such a cycle the roots are exposed to harsh frost before being carefully moved into large forcing sheds that fringe the growing fields. The sheds are kept completely darkened and in a heated environment, taking advantage of cheap coal from the Yorkshire Mines, the rhubarb stems are fooled into transforming the carbohydrate goodness into glucose which gives the distinctive bittersweet flavour.

The shed hot houses produce a very tender shoots under anaemic green yellow broad-leaves and in 2 foot lengths of textured, crimson delight.

If a Yorkshireman from the Triangle growing area offered an invitation to a sweetheart for a candlelit evening then she knew best to bring wellington boots and oilskins. The stalks were pulled in such artificial light as bright and strong exposure would halt growth. The crop would be fully harvested by the end of the long winter and early spring.

In the age of steam trains special Express Services would take the rhubarb to the Spitalfields and Covent Garden markets in London or for export to Europe. It took until 2010 for a group of producers from the Rhubarb Triangle to be awarded the Protected Designation of Origin for 'Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb'. The twelve farmers, as instigators behind the application to the EU,  represented a mere rump of those involved in the production process from the 1800's. The forcing method had originally included hundreds of growers, individual smallholders and market gardeners and with a proliferation of the often extensive covered acres in the heated timber sheds.

A combination of world, economic and consumer factors marked 1939 as the tipping point for rhubarb production in this way. The Ministry of Food saw the careful nurturing of the plants for up to two and a half years as a waste of valuable growing land and resources and the immature green field grown stalks were commandeered to be made into jam for rationing in the war years. Fixed pricing for wartime rhubarb saw a flourishing of Black Market business.  Increasing shortages of cheap coal on the doorstep of the Triangle led to a reliance on increasingly costly imported oil. The arrival after the war of a wider range of fruits relegated rhubarb from the perception and shopping baskets of the public. The coverage of the Triangle retracted accordingly from its zenith of 30 square miles to the current 9. Land, previously under the broad leaves of rhubarb, has been lost in large tracts to residential development across the West Yorkshire conurbation on a regular, creeping basis in the post war years.

The rhubarb industry does survive, just, in its natural geographic location and is celebrated for its cultural and economic heritage with a Festival and a Sculpture.

This is little comfort to me, however, following my miserable failings to nurture George's prized rhubarb in the East Yorkshire Rectangle that is supposed to be my productive vegetable plot.

(First written in 2013)