Читать книгу Love Bites: Marital Skirmishes in the Kitchen - Christopher Hirst - Страница 8

IN HIS BOOK Rhubarb: The Wondrous Drug, Clifford Foust, Professor of History at the University of Maryland, explains ‘the several advantages’ of my home turf of West Yorkshire as the perfect terroir for rhubarb. It had ‘a climate northerly enough for a lengthy autumn dormancy period’ and ‘high rainfall for maximum plant development’. The ‘smoky and polluted atmosphere’ helped ‘induce early and full dormancy…for early forcing’ and ‘urban sludge’ provided plentiful fertiliser. No wonder I have rhubarb juice in my veins.

Perhaps the first dish I ever made for myself was chunks of raw rhubarb dipped in sugar. Half a century ago in the West Riding of Yorkshire, we would have been mystified by Jane Grigson’s insistence on ‘only pink young rhubarb’. This is a ‘forced’ winter crop grown in large, dark sheds. It tastes great, but why limit yourself to this etiolated stuff when outdoor rhubarb continues to delight the palate throughout summer? Unless you use telegraph-pole-sized rhubarb, you need not fear stringiness. And what if there is a suggestion of the fibrous? Is that going to kill you?

The pie I made as a treat for Mrs H’s mother was equipped with a pastry floor, walls and roof, because that’s the kind of pie my mother made. I still feel short-changed if I receive a pie, whether sweet or savoury, where the pastry consists only of a lid. Unlike my mother, I cheated by using ready-made pastry, shortcrust because that’s what I grew up with, though puff, which Mrs H prefers, is also OK. Either way, a highlight of the pie is the sweetened pink rhubarb juice soaking into the pie floor. You don’t get that with rhubarb crumble.

After rolling out the pastry, I used the majority of it to line a large dish. I chopped the rhubarb stalks into cubes and put them into the pie. I then added sugar (a 5:3 ratio of rhubarb to sugar is about right) and installed the roof. As Mrs H points out, it usually required a certain amount of patching. After sealing the joints by pinching, I brushed it with milk and slashed three holes for steam-release as I’d seen my mother do hundreds of times. Emerging from the oven, the pastry patchwork had, I thought, a fine manly vigour. Lumps of rhubarb were visible through the three crevasses.

‘Just a small slice for me,’ said Mrs H’s mum.

While she nibbled, I enlightened her about the mysterious story of rhubarb. For exoticism, its etymology beats everything else in the larder. The ‘rhu’ bit derives from Rha, the Greek name for the River Volga, where the plant was transported, while ‘barb’ comes from the Latin barbarus (meaning ‘foreign’, ‘strange’ and, ironically, ‘uncultivated’). This, in turn, came from a Greek onomatopoeic coinage because barbarian speech sounded like ‘Ba, ba, ba’. The ‘rhubarbing’ of film extras is an unconscious return to the plant’s distant origins. It was possibly first cultivated in Mongolia by the Tartar tribes of the Gobi Desert. We don’t know if anyone told Genghis Khan that rhubarb was nanny food.

‘Fancy that,’ said Mrs H’s mum. ‘It was lovely, but I won’t have another slice, thank you.’

At our next meeting, I produced another monumental construction. ‘I’ve made you a rhubarb pie,’ I announced, a trifle superfluously, as I cut her a chunk.

‘Oh, lovely.’

‘Did you know that we all come from rhubarb?’

‘Really, dear?’

The Zoroastrians, I explained, believed that ‘the human race was born of the rhubarb plant’. I gleaned this insight from The Legendary Cuisine of Of Persia by Margaret Shaida, who notes that reevâs, the Persian name for the plant, comes from a word meaning ‘shining light’. The association came about because ‘from ancient times, rhubarb has been considered good for cleansing the blood and purifying the system’. Until the eighteenth century, rhubarb was mainly used as a laxative in Britain. Only the root was consumed, with Chinese rhubarb being particularly prized for its cathartic properties. A great rarity by the time it reached here, it cost four times as much as opium in medieval times. I once saw some Chinese rhubarb root in the Fernet-Branca factory in Milan. It took the form of large powdery, purple-brown lumps. Along with forty other wonderfully weird ingredients (white agaric, cinchona, aloes, zedoary, myrrh), it is used to enhance the bitterness of this acerbic potion.

The plant’s stalk only became used for culinary purposes with the arrival of Siberian rhubarb in the eighteenth century. Hybrids developed in the nineteenth century combined with the declining price of sugar to make rhubarb a favourite dessert of the Victorians. (You certainly need sugar in rhubarb pie. It’s the oxalic acid in rhubarb that makes it such an interesting food.) The types known as Victoria and Royal Albert were developed by Joseph Myatt, evidently an ardent monarchist, in his market gardens in Deptford and Camberwell (the latter is now a park called Myatt’s Fields), while the imaginatively named Champagne came from a rival grower called Hawkes in nearby Lewisham. The three heroes of Three Men in a Boat (1889) dine off rhubarb pie before setting out on their great adventure. The laxative property of rhubarb continued to be utilised even when the stalks became a foodstuff. In America, rhubarb was known as ‘a broom for the system’.

‘How interesting,’ said Mrs H’s mother. ‘Actually, I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish this piece.’

I had no doubt what Mrs H’s mum expected the next time she paid a visit. ‘Guess what I’ve made!’ I said. Hewing a wedge for her, I returned to our favourite topic. ‘Do you know how many cookbooks have been devoted to rhubarb?’ The answer is over 300, mostly produced during the ‘Rhubarb Craze’ that swept Britain and America in the early years of the twentieth century. But for those of us from the Rhubarb Triangle there is one supreme rhubarb dish. Sadly, my dear mother-in-law is no longer around to enjoy my rhubarb pie. At least, I thought she enjoyed it, though her daughter cast doubt on this.

‘It was funny that you always made rhubarb pie when my mother came round.’

‘What do you mean, “funny”?’

‘You never saw her face when you produced your pies.’

‘She enjoyed them!’

‘She was too polite to say she wasn’t very fond of rhubarb.’

In subsequent years, Mrs H has continued this weird familial objection to rhubarb pie, but she grudgingly agreed to indulge my passion by making some other recipes that involve rhubarb. By way of encouragement, I obtained a volume called Rhubarb – More Than Just Pies, published by the University of Alberta Press. They grow a lot of rhubarb in Alberta.

Her preliminary report on rhubarb and ginger mousse was optimistic. ‘You simmer sliced rhubarb and orange zest with powdered ginger till the fruit is soft,’ she explained. ‘Then you add gelatine. When it’s half set, you beat egg whites to peaks and fold in to create the mousse. It’s got a nice orange and ginger taste that complements the rhubarb. It looks lovely.’

‘Should it have separated like this?’ I asked after peering into the fridge at four glass beakers containing a murky orange jelly topped by a gnarled-looking mousse of greyish hue.

‘It hadn’t separated when it went in,’ said Mrs H, resentfully. It didn’t taste impossibly bad. Just odd. The mousse had a curious texture, like fibre-reinforced resin. It might have been an early experiment in making plastic. It was edible, just about, but not mousse as we know it. The jelly part was tasty but very hard indeed. ‘Maybe I used too much gelatine,’ groaned Mrs H. ‘I used a new kind of gelatine that gives directions for making a litre and I only wanted a pint. I sat there for ages trying to work it out and I think I got it wrong.’

‘Do you want to give it another go?’

‘No.’

Mrs H thought she might have better luck with savoury rhubarb dishes. Currently, the use of rhubarb as a savoury is very fashionable in trendy restaurants, where, of course, the chefs stick to the wimpy, pink stuff. ‘Rhubarb-carrot relish sounds nice,’ she said, poring through Rhubarb – More Than Just Pies. But it wasn’t. Considering the tastiness of the two main ingredients, which were boiled separately in salty water, puréed, then mixed together with butter, the determined blandness of the rhubarb-carrot relish was a disappointment. Maybe they like things bland in Alberta.

‘It is slightly reminiscent of aubergine dip,’ I said encouragingly. Helped along with Tabasco, it became somewhat more toothsome, but Mrs H would not be consoled. ‘Into the bin,’ she said.

The nadir of her rhubarb experimentation came with rhubarb relish, consisting of diced rhubarb along with the usual suspects – brown sugar, vinegar, chopped onion and spices. The instructions could barely be simpler: ‘Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan and boil until thickened.’ So what could go wrong?

‘The postman,’ said Mrs H.

‘The postman?’

‘Yes. I did the relish and I was just putting it into jars when the postman rang at the door with lots of parcels for you. While he was giving them to me, a woman came up and said she wanted him to take a letter because the postbox had been sealed. He said he wasn’t supposed to take it…’

‘What’s this got to do with rhubarb?’ I asked, feeling we were straying from the point somewhat.

‘Hang on! A long discussion followed about where there was an open postbox. The woman said, “I don’t know where that is,” and the postman reluctantly accepted the letter. Eventually, I brought the parcels back into the house and thought “Oh, hell.” I knew something had gone very wrong when I couldn’t lift my bailing jug from the bottom of the pan. Look, there it is, stuck fast.’

Yes, there it was. I pulled at the jug. It was like trying to lift the Chrysler Building from the Manhattan bedrock. With the assistance of a kettle of boiling water, I managed to pry the jug from the world’s toughest relish. I turned to Mrs H expecting grateful thanks, but all I got was a glum look. Her mouth turned down at both ends like a banana. She pointed at the jars of ‘relish’ that she had filled before her jar got stuck. The contents were akin to bitumen. It was a sort of rhubarb toffee and might even have been chewable if I’d been able to get any out, but I didn’t want to risk my fillings on it.

A few days later, Mrs H returned to the fray. She amended the relish recipe with more onion, more rhubarb and a spoonful of ground allspice, but her major refinement concerned the cooking technique. ‘Instead of “boil until thickened”, I brought it to the boil then turned it down to a very low simmer and reduced the mixture. Every time I smelled it, I gave it a stir.’

‘So how long did that take?’

‘I put it on at 8:30 a.m. and finished it at 3:15 p.m.’

The result of the seven-hour simmer was a sticky, brown goo. Sweet-sour but wonderfully rounded, it was excellent. The chunks of rhubarb radiated a profound flavour that tinged on the palate for ages. Maybe it would improve with maturing, but a vintage version of Mrs H’s rhubarb relish is unlikely because it is so addictive. Particularly when consumed with pork pie, the contents of a jar can magically disappear in a matter of minutes.

Her next effort concerned a rhubarb sauce intended for pork chops. Made with red wine, vinegar and chicken stock, it looked slightly dubious to me. Fruit with meat (apple with pork, cherries with duck, etc.) is one of my blind spots. I know I should like it, but I feel instinctively drawn to the mustard pot. ‘I don’t think I’ll bother with the sauce,’ I announced.

Mrs H took a mouthful of the combination and asserted, ‘Well – ner, ner, ner – it goes quite well with the pork.’

After risking a taste, I had to admit that it did. The sharpness of the sauce, which the wine had made ruby-red, was a perfect foil for the pork chop. Even when the chop had vanished, the sauce was pretty good. Mrs H scribbled in my notebook: ‘Mr H said he didn’t want any rhubarb on his pork chops, thank you, but he ended up nicking a great spoonful from the serving bowl.’

Even better was her rendition of Persian khoresh, a stew with rhubarb and shoulder of lamb. You may recall that the Persians regarded rhubarb as a holy vegetable, and going by the taste of this they were not far out. ‘It’s been simmering on top of the stove for about seven hours,’ said Mrs H. ‘The rhubarb only goes in for the last quarter of an hour.’ Each forkful delivered contrasting flavours – the sweetness of the lamb, the tartness of the rhubarb, sweetness again with caramelised onions – which were magically complementary. ‘Mmm, this is nice,’ I gushed.

After this triumph, I felt it was time for me to have a go at a savoury rhubarb dish. I tried a Gary Rhodes recipe for steamed oysters with rhubarb. Though I am possibly the world’s greatest oyster lover, certainly one of the greediest, I was a little hesitant about this weird combination. But Rhodes points out that a sauce of chopped shallots in red wine vinegar (known as mignonette) is a traditional accompaniment to oysters, so he came up with rhubarb softened in red wine vinegar with a touch of sugar as a partner to steamed, buttery oysters.

Inevitably, he calls for ‘3–4 sticks of forced rhubarb’, but I used thin sticks of the ordinary kind. The recipe is a bit fiddly for my liking. Even with shortcuts, I found myself cussing when it came to putting a teensy-weeny pile of rhubarb in each empty shell and placing a steamed, buttery oyster on top of each pile. ‘Bloody fiddly, cheffy nonsense.’ (I give you an expurgated version.) But, yes, I admit it, the sweetness of the oysters and the sourness of the rhubarb worked remarkably well together.

My final bash at rhubarb came from Robin Lane Fox, biographer of Alexander the Great, who presumably knew a thing or two about rhubarb. According to him (Fox, not Alexander), rhubarb stewed with ‘masses of caster sugar’, then mixed with the grated rind and juice of an orange and left overnight, is not only ‘the supreme recipe’ but ‘the true king of all English puddings’. It has a very good acidy flavour, but maybe it’s more of a delicious accompaniment to stuff like blancmange or yogurt than a pudding as such.

‘Mmm. It’s very refreshing,’ said Mrs H. ‘A bit like eating those Haliborange tablets I had as a child.’ This was a new one on me, since I had a Haliborange-free childhood, but it was evidently high praise. ‘Lovely.’

She also astonished me by reminiscing about another rhubarb dish. ‘I rather miss those days when you were always pulling huge, patched pies from the oven.’ Mrs H wanted her own Proustian moment.

Mrs H’s recipe for lamb khoresh with rhubarb

We make this dish for friends for informal suppers or lunches and it always produces lots of oooh’s and ahh’s and satisfied slurping noises. Shoulder of lamb has more fat than other cuts but compensates with its sweet flavour. The fat is eventually skimmed off anyway. The herbs complement the lamb in an entirely satisfactory way and the tang of the rhubarb gets the tastebuds going. We usually serve this with a generous quantity of nutty basmati rice, to mop up the juices, and a green salad. Depending on the size of the lamb shoulder and the appetites of the guests, the ingredients below should serve six to eight people.

1.4 kg boned shoulder of lamb

2 large Spanish-type onions

4 tablespoons butter

a generous pinch of saffron

625ml beef stock

4 tablespoons lemon juice

salt and pepper to season

2 bunches of fresh flat-leaf parsley

6–8 sprigs of fresh mint

450g rhubarb, cut into 2.5cm pieces

The khoresh has different cooking times for different stages. I like to think that you are building up the flavours.

Deal with the meat first by chopping the shoulder of lamb into 5cm chunks. Trim off any bits you don’t want, but remember you need the fat to flavour the meat. Next chop up the onions and sauté them gently with two tablespoons of the butter in a large flameproof casserole until they are transparent. Once cooked, remove from the pan and set aside. Now turn the heat up a little more and quickly seal the lamb pieces in the casserole, using the pan drippings from the onions to fry and brown the meat. Lower the heat again, then add the saffron strands to the meat and stir well. Now reintroduce the onions to the pan. Add the beef stock and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper. Bring everything to the boil, then turn the heat down, cover the pan and simmer the khoresh gently for about 1 hour.

While you wait, chop the parsley and mint. Set aside some of the herb mixture for garnish, then sauté the rest of the leaves briefly with the remaining butter and add to the casserole for another 30 minutes.

Add the chopped rhubarb to the casserole for the last 15 minutes. Test the meat for doneness and check the seasoning. The final element of flavour is added when you concentrate the sauce. Use a slotted spoon to remove the meat mix to a serving dish. Keep it warm. Skim the fat from the top of the remaining pan juices and boil the liquid hard until it is reduced by one third. Pour the thickened juices over the meat, and garnish with the saved mint and parsley. Serve with basmati rice and salad.

Mrs H’s recipe for savoury rhubarb sauce

Based on a recipe from Rhubarb: More Than Just Pies, this was a revelation. Although we served it with pork, I cannot see why it could not accompany other meats. This recipe should be sufficient for four. The pork was grilled and marinated in olive oil and the juice and zest of an orange. We had a fresh spinach and asparagus salad for veg.

4 rhubarb stalks

250ml red wine

125ml red wine vinegar

180ml chicken stock

Chop the rhubarb into smallish pieces and transfer to a saucepan. Mix in the red wine and vinegar and let everything marinate for 30 minutes. Add the chicken stock to the pan and bring everything to a slow boil. Stir the sauce now and again to prevent it sticking. Cook for around 20–30 minutes, by which time the rhubarb should fall apart and the liquid be reduced enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Keep the sauce warm until it is ready for use. Spoon it over the meat and wait for the taste explosion.