
Rhubarb: The role of Edinburgh in its cultivation and development [pdf] - DanBC
http://www.rcpe.ac.uk/sites/default/files/jrcpe_47_1_lee.pdf
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frikk
I've lived in the midwest all of my life, and grew up eating Rhubarb Pie that
my grandmother made. The Rhubarb she used was from her garden, and is likely
the decedent of my original German homestead family from several generation
back.

Recently I've come to learn that Rhubarb is not native. Which was surprising
to me because I see it everywhere. It came over from our European immigrants
and has been hanging out ever since.

Last spring I was hiking in a forest in ND, and came across a beautiful patch
of rhubarb. This got me thinking -- where did this patch of Rhubarb come from?
If all local Rhubarb eventually can be traced back to the mother plant brought
over from Europe as immigrants made their way west, could we use genetic
markers to trace individual patches back to specific homesteads, and
ultimately to specific counties of origin in Europe? This kind of thing
fascinates me.

According to the linked article, the plant originally came from China. So in
theory, only part of the story would be told by linking a patch back to
Europe. You could continue to trace back all the way to China.

~~~
pvaldes
The group is Himalayan if I'm not wrong. Is a mountain plant.

For me it was always a frustrating species, very reluctant to grow and prone
to death sentence by slug.

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scentoni
"Gregory was notoriously argumentative and after a quarrel with a fellow
academic, Professor Hamilton, he smote him to the ground with his stick.
Summoned to court he was found guilty of assault and fined £100 (a
considerable amount in those days). He had the last word, however. On paying
his fine, he said that ‘He would willingly pay double to be allowed to repeat
the assault’."

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Digory
If the Russians had a virtual monopoly until the late 1700s, it's interesting
that the plant spread so fast. My grandparents told stories about their
parents enjoying rhubarb, and they were certainly not wealthy.

So rhubarb went from something you'd send to the Pope to curry favor, to a
very common plant in the gardens of the poor, in less than a century.

~~~
Pfhreak
It's very easy to grow, and quite prolific once established. I have two
plants, and with no effort on my part I can harvest 10lbs or more from each
every year.

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js2
Sadly, no mention of rhubarb pie, which I'd never had before moving to the
southern U.S.:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhubarb_pie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhubarb_pie)

The wikipedia page also mentions what seems like a important tidbit: the
stalks remain toxic if frostbitten.

~~~
TwiztidK
In Michigan, Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie is pretty common and available at any
larger grocery store year round. Plain rhubarb pie (which is superior in my
opinion) is much less common but still available upon request from most
bakeries. Similarly, my family has "Rhubarb Crunch", basically an Apple Crisp
using rhubarb instead of apples, at every major family gathering in the
summer.

~~~
js2
Oops, I didn't mean to imply it's unique to the south, just that I'd never had
it growing up in Miami. The delicacy there (which has no equal) is key-lime
pie. :-)

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dwe3000
From the family stories I have heard, my great-grandmother raised rhubarb, so
my grandmother had it because my grandfather was used to it. I was encouraged
to take a stalk whenever I wanted growing up, which, at times, was twice
daily.

As for location, I grew up in Illinois, my grandmother was from Arkansas, and
my grandfather and his mother, while being from Illinois, traced their family
roots back to Pennsylvania Dutch.

I still prefer the raw stalk to anything else.

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dang
I love the etymology whereby 'barb' in 'rhubarb' means 'barbarian'—because
from the Greeks' point of view, only barbarians would eat it.

[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=rhubarb](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=rhubarb)

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scentoni
I remember rhubarb and Icelandic poppies
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papaver_nudicaule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papaver_nudicaule))
were among the few introduced perennials that prospered in Anchorage, Alaska.

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fiftyacorn
Its funny because Ive never seen anything at the Botanics in Edinburgh about
this aspect of its history, and i spend a lot of time there

Also no mention of roobarb and custard -

[http://www.roobarbandcustard.tv/](http://www.roobarbandcustard.tv/)

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dang
There's something particularly satisfying about this submission combining
rhubarb and Edinburgh, either of which would make for a fine offbeat HN post
in its own right. Maybe value grows quadratically with the number of such
inputs.

~~~
DanBC
One of my favourite photographs is this one:

[http://imgur.com/a/Fty3m](http://imgur.com/a/Fty3m)

I was told it's from Gloucestershire in the 1930s, but I have no way of
knowing if that's true.

I can't get my head round their shoes.

