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The Galloping Geezer
Jack Downey ~ The Galloping Geezer

"Photo Credit to Julie Ann Biggs out on the Mekong River, Cambodia Vietnam Border."

Jack Downey Comments on Canadian Issues to Inform and Amuse.



Thank the Roman Gods for a short February
or
February's "Blahs" after January's Broken Resolutions Make me Pine for Rhubarb Pie.



Last weekend (in honour of St. Valentine's Day), I chatted up a few friends by phoning around the country. There certainly is a rather diversified weather pattern that affects the Canadian persona. The various areas with the wide temperature variances cause Canadians to start craving vitamin C, which is found in great quantities in Canadian rhubarb. I am thinking of applying for a government grant to ascertain when the first rhubarb shows it's sprouts and is ready for the picking. Rhubarb is a strange plant and, had we been sharp, it would have been the leaf shown on the Canadian Flag. I have never met a Canadian who disliked rhubarb. The bravest of the brave will eat it without sugar, the next bravest will filch a palm full of sugar for dipping the fresh fronds in.

Who could turn down a piece of Rhubarb pie or a Sunday brunch, French Toast layered, rhubarb frond sandwich made from the fresh shoots that had unrolled just that morning to herald the arrival of spring. I can see those pink stems now, providing a preview taste of the new gardening year. For real old-fashioned effect, the piecrust is made with lard and sprinkled with course sugar. Each family puts as much sugar into the filling as did their grandmother. Those with great luck or their own cows can have whipped cream with this special treat. Sometimes there is enough crust dough and filling left over to make tarts for school lunches.

Those with plants of their own, or with friends in the country with extra stalks, can make rhubarb bread, cookies, stew, dumplings, and many other fine tasting spring goodoodles. The telephone and email are wearing away this magical time of the year. When we phone home and find that the old folks have already had rhubarb pie or aunt Helen has sent over a dozen Rhubarb cookies, we are pretty much moving towards deep depression or the Rhubarb blues. Nothing is as important to a Canadian as the ability to tell all and sundry that you have baked a pair of rhubarb pies and the crust is ever-so-flaky. This pretty well establishes the spring pecking order across our great land.


Being a member of the UK Royals Rhubarb Bunch is not easy. HRH the POW and Camilla have a head start on you, as pure royal horse manure is known to be the best rhubarb stimulant, if dug in during the autumn. Camilla also cooks a mean, deep dish, rhubarb pie in the spring.

Often the annual King and Queen of Canadian Rhubarb are found to reside on the west coast. The crown this year looks like it is going to the Sunshine Coast. Yes, you heard it here first, some rhubarb is already being picked and sold to the health folks along the coast. The OK Valley is in a tight race with Niagara Falls area FOR SECOND. The prairie may not be as early, but sure does grow huge fronds before seeding off. The NWT grow late, but great, midnight sun rhubarb.

Due to some personal problems, my annual visit to The Spring Rhubarb Pie Ball at HRH POW and Camellia's palace is pretty much out. It is time to break with that Victoria BC tradition of going out in tweeds for Water Cress Sandwiches at the Empress Hotel. We can hold our own Rhubarb Pie Ball in the spring and the Blueberry Pie Ball in the Fall.

It makes sense to me that we should have a Rhubarb Derby across Canada every spring. This is something we could all excel at from Sea to Sea to Sea. Victoria could be the Rhubarb Capital (with the Spring Ball) and Halifax the Blueberry Capital (with the fall Ball) this would certainly spread the cheer (and confirm Ottawa the place of no balls at all!)

Spring is coming on strong here and my campanaro, Griff, and I are breaking out of our winter hibernation. If you're wise, you'll pick and cook up your rhubarb and get it stored away out of sight. We have been known to drop in on complete strangers who have large plantations of this marvelous sign of spring. They are told, and we the calling cards to prove it, that we represent The Royal Rhubarb Ranchers of Canada. We allow a delay of two to three hours and then return to their site to taste and asses the pie.

It should be noted that the Maple Sugaring Off parties they have down east are mild stuff compared with out tasting of the pies made from the spring ruhubarb from out behind the western Out House.

A brief, pre European, History of Rhubarb may be found at; Rhubarbinfo.com. I have excerpted a few passages below:

Rhubarb is a very old plant. Its medicinal uses and horticulture have been recorded in history since ancient China.

3.1 - Early History

Earliest records date back to 2700 BC in China where Rhubarb was cultivated for medicinal purposes (its purgative qualities). According to Lindley's Treasury of Botany, the technical name of the genus (Rheum) is said to be derived from Rha, the ancient name of the Volga, on whose banks the plants grow. There were those who called it Rha Ponticum, and others Rheum or Rha-barbarum. Others derive the name from the Greek rheo ('to flow'), in allusion to the purgative properties of the root. One of the most famous pharmacologists of ancient times the Greek Discorides, spoke of a root known as "rha" or "rheon", which came from the Bosphorus (the winding strait that separates Europe and Asia).

The following comes from Bj÷rn Kjellgren, Dept. of Chinese studies, University of Stockholm, Sweden: "You might be interested in the following from the (Chinese) 25 Dynastic Histories, ershiwu shi (the collected official histories of the emperial dynasties):
  • Rhubarb is given to the Wu emperor of the Liang dynasty (reign: 557-579) to cure his fever but only after warning him that rhubarb, being a most potent drug, must be taken with great moderation.
  • Rhubarb was transported to the throne as tributes from the southern parts of China during the Tang dynasty (618-907).
  • During the Song dynasty (960-1127) the rhubarb is taken in times of plague.
  • During the Yuan dynasty (1115-1234) a Christian sentenced to a hard punishment is pardoned after using previously collected rhubarb to heal some soldiers.
  • During the end of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) a Ming-general tries (in vain) to commit suicide by eating rhubarb medicine.
  • The Guangzong emperor (1620-1621) is miraculously cured from some severe illness he got after having had a joyful time with four "beautiful women" sent to him by a high official, cured with rhubarb, naturally. (This needs checking out with the new health care budget???!!!)
  • 1759 the Qianlong emperor of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) forbids export of tea and rhubarb to the Russians after a border conflict in the north part of China.
  • In 1790 the same emperor declares that the Western countries will have to do without rhubarb.
  • In 1828 the Daoguang-emperor sends out an edict to the effect that no more tea and rhubarb must now be sold to the "barbarians".
  • The imperial commissioner, Lin Zexu, who was sent to Canton in 1839 to put an end to the opium trade wrote a letter to Queen Victoria pointing to the "fact" that the foreign barbarians surely would die if they could not obtain tea and rhubarb from China and that the Queen for this reason should stop the wicked British merchants from trading with opium. Victoria seems never to have had the letter translated and read for her and when Lin Zexu later the same year wrote to the British merchants in Canton telling them that a stop to the rhubarb trade would mean the death for the pitiful foreigners, the pitiful foreigners responded with canon boats. So, maybe, the Opium War should have been called the Rhubarb War?

    To find out how HRH the POW, an avid gardener, and Camilla got Rhubarb, read on for UK planting, a brief History of Rhubarb at click here.


© Jack C. Downey CD




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