The 50 Mile Diet

Apparently, rhubarb is is in season. Rhubarb is a teaser of wonderful fruit to come. It grow plentifully and the bright red color makes it look tempting. But it is a rather tart flavored food, one that my son has learned to avoid. I, however, am convinced it can be made tasty.

Picking this rhubarb was fraught with its own challenge. My friend C. has a tremendous plant near the corner of his property. A groundhog had taken up shop in a hole around the gigantic plant. The groundhog has dug huge holes on one side of the rhubarb patch. I don’t much like the critters, and I tried shouting down the hole to the sleeping rodent one day just to annoy him, but given their propensity for produce, perhaps I need to learn to share. Stepping carefully around its holes, I reached in below the leaves and selected which stalks were long and red enough to pull. I pulled a large amount of rhubarb stalks, tearing off the leaves and leaving them to compost (these leaves are not edible).

Armed with about 6 lbs. of rhubarb, I needed to get serious.

I made two batches of rhubarb jam. I think the later crop of rhubarb will be timed well for the early crop of strawberries, but for today, the jam was just rhubarb. When rhubarb is chopped, it’s mostly green on the inside, and I worried that the jam would be green as well. My recipe even called for optional red food coloring! I didn’t add it (couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t) and was pleased at the natural color of the jam.

For the record, rhubarb is a good source of magnesium, as well as vitamin C, K, calcium, potassium and manganese.