bonus Material - Food Facts

Introducing Rhubarb - The harbinger of spring crops has arrived!

The long-awaited first crops of spring have arrived! Rhubarb has been slow this year, but that has not stopped our intrepid local food advocate Sarah Pugh from experimenting with the first stalks she could get her hands on. She has created a treat of Ginger Rhubarb Semifreddo. To find out what a semifreddo is and how to make this creamy, frozen treat, see Sarah's recipe here.

Based on Natasha's enthusiasm for it, I believe that raw rhubarb is a toddler delicacy. In the past, in parts of the UK and Sweden children were given tender stalks of rhubarb dipped in sugar as a special treat. She just eats it straight out of the ground.

Some things you may not know about rhubarb: Most of us know not to eat the poisonous leaves, but take care too with the roots and even stems. The roots have been used as an aggressive laxative for over 5,000 years. Watch out how much your wee one ends up eating if she is prone to raw rhubarb munching between meals! And the word 'rhubarb' is often what actors who are extras in filming say to each other repeatedly and asynchronously to make it look and sound like they are all in conversation. And another use for rhubarb in the kitchen is as a pot cleaner. Rub the cut stalks on your blackened pots to get the silvery shine back.

Find out all you ever wanted to know about rhubarb here.

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