Have you noticed?
As a little girl who adored the idea of being a Chef, I spent most of my leisure pre-teen / teenage days drowned watching TV shows on Food Network every chance I got. That must have been my first sight and knowledge of Rhubarb.
What seemed like a giant lettuce with huge stalks…bright pink, shades of green, but scary. I could not possibly imagine making a meal from such a plant. One would wonder what plant could be pink, but somehow give a scare.
Reading more about them before writing this article, they are vegetables that some others consider as fruits. They are sort of mostly prepared by the same method you would prepare a fruit, by cooking the textured stalks in a sweetener, which then gives it a tart taste (probably as a tamarind candy would taste), and then they get used in different meals. The giant leaves are considered poisonous, which makes them inedible.
Fast forward a real-life time-lapse, it’s 2025, and I’m doom-scrolling from one digital circus tent to another, and I could see several recordings, reels, and TikTok videos of creators making a meal out of rhubarb. A capturing clip was one of Ballerina Farm Girl making ice cream alongside what looks like a Rhubarb syrup as a topping for her Family meal ice cream. While making her Rhubarb syrup, she tosses a piece that’s been coated with sugar and ginger into her mouth, and proceeds to describe the taste as “nature’s sour patch”. I would say that description made me feel like I would love to have a taste, sort of like an “I wanna taste too!” moment.
In that moment, and even in this moment, my thoughts of Rhubarbs have changed from a scare to a possible craving (scratch that 🙂 maybe just a delight to look forward to). I’ve also read that rhubarb is particularly native to Asia, grown in the U.S. and the UK. It could also be grown in this part of the world, but might not thrive as much as it is meant to. However, I believe green housing would change that as well as importation, which means I’ll be on the lookout for rhubarb to confirm how true my cravings for this are, and maybe some cheers to that.
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