by Mandy Beem-Miller
It’s one of those things that seems to come out of nowhere. One moment the rhubarb patch is barren, nothing but dead stalks and dirt. The next you are looking through the back porch window, out over the flag stone wall and the hill that rises beyond to the garden and, low and behold, that spiritless mass of wintery debris is transformed. At first there are just the red nobly buds, poking above the dark earth. Without much ado wide paddle like, almost triangular leaves, in deep emerald green, balloon out from the deep red nubs, which have now become cinnamon candy colored stalks. It occurs in such a jiff, like growing babies, weeds in the garden, and the weekend, that it appears to have happened when your head was turned. From dirt heap to vibrant edible, and one of the first true signs that the growing season in upstate NY has begun.
Much of the yard is still in hibernation; the rest of springs flora and fauna appears to creep along more slowly. The trees are budding but only the first flowers- crocuses, snowdrops, maybe a daffodil or two- have begun to show signs of life. But this rhubarb is one of the great gifts of early spring. While we must wait months longer for the next edible harvest, grandma’s rhubarb patch will be prime for picking in a few short weeks. And the thing is prolific, so long as you keep harvesting it. As per GK’s (Grandma Kate) instruction you must regularly prune the patch to keep up the production. Only then you end up with so much of the stuff that you need to come up with more ways to use it, beyond the requisite pies, crumbles and fools. A couple of years back we were wallowing in this rhubarb surplus and wondered if rhubarb could be used as savory ingredient as well…. and so the experiments began.
There were compotes and gastriques to accompany pork loin and pot roast, a haphazard attempt at a savory rhubarb chowder, and finally rhubarb salsa. This was the winner. Deciding that the flavors of rhubarb were similar to that of tomatillo- tart, sour, tangy- I created a salsa with all of the other elements of traditional green salsa. By blending together roasted rhubarb with lots of cilantro, onion, garlic and jalapeños, and touch of sugar and salt we ended up with a semi-seasonal spring salsa. The discovery was exciting for an Upstate New Yorker who wants desperately to use local ingredients, but faces many months (most winters) of dreary weather with not an edible thing in sight. It might not be totally local, in light of the fact that until much later in the summer we will have to depend on cilantro from elsewhere, but it’s an improvement. Plus it’s a use for this giant patch of rhubarb.
Mandy Beem-Miller is currently a senior at The New School. Before obtaining her Bachelors, she spent a year at Apicius, a culinary arts school in Florence Italy, completing the program in Food Communications. She has worked as a food photographer and in many professional kitchens. Just last year she opened her own taco truck that serves locavore style mexican inspired street food. She lives in the rural Finger Lakes region of Upstate NY, on land that has been in her family for over 100 years.
Republished with permission from Mandy Beem-Miller.
Comments are closed.