Rhubarb, and the Short Season
Rhubarb is the first thing we cook of the year, and it is also the shortest season we have. In this garden it does not creep forward like strawberries or hang on like the figs. It comes in hard, red and sour, lasts about a fortnight, and then the stalks turn woody, the leaves go coarse, and the whole business is over until next spring.
We do not wait for the outdoor crop. At the end of March we cut a few old stalks from the back of the patch, the ones we would throw away, and stand them in a bucket of water in the dark, warm cupboard under the stairs. A week later there are small pale leaves and the stalks have softened enough to bend. This is forcing, and it is the only trick we know that is not really a trick.
Forced rhubarb is paler and less sweet than the outdoor kind, and it wants less sugar for that reason. We bake it with a little butter and orange peel, and we eat it with cream while it is still warm from the dish. The stems that never soften are not a loss. We cut them into short lengths and simmer them slowly with a bit of sugar into a sharp sauce that goes on bread or thick yoghurt.
The window closes fast. By the second week of May the forced stalks are finished and the outdoor crop has not arrived, and there is a gap of a week when there is simply nothing. Elena refuses to buy any during that gap, which she calls the test. The test is whether we still want the thing when it is scarce, and the honest answer this year was yes, and we had a very quiet kitchen for a week.