Friday, May 5, 2017

Spring Greens

Some years ago I was lucky enough to discover that the mistress of the real house that I use in the Orchard Mysteries, Olive Barton Warner (a distant relation), kept a diary for many years. The annual books are all in the local historical society, but I had a chance to copy two of them, including the earliest, written in 1880.



It’s a simple record of what the family (husband Eugene and daughters Lula and Nettie) did each day on a farm (110 acres) in western Massachusetts. The entries are short and matter-of-fact, but they provide some wonderful insights into nineteenth century life (although husband Eugene usually gets only a line or two).



The earliest volume reports that on Thursday, April 29th, 1880, the girls picked the first greens of the season, and Olive made two rhubarb pies, as well as a batch of raised doughnuts and a loaf of gingerbread and four other pies (she did a lot of baking! But alas, no recipes).

I thought it would be nice to honor her at this time of year, when Massachusetts fruits and vegetables are just coming to market. But I had to look up exactly what Olive might have planted that would be ready to harvest in April and May. Luckily I found a useful listing of seasonal vegetables in Massachusetts online. Here they are: arugula, asparagus, chard, fiddlehead ferns (I did give a recipe here for those—they’re available only for a short time each year), lettuce, nettles, new potatoes, parsley, pea greens, radishes, rhubarb, scallions, spinach, and thyme.

I don’t know what the weather was like in western Massachusetts in May of 1880, but it’s too chilly around here at the moment to think about making salads, even with fresh lettuce and such. That leaves me with . . . rhubarb, which Olive mentioned. Would you believe I have never cooked with rhubarb? But I guess it’s time to try. I looked through my cookbooks and came up with few recipes (although a lot of apple recipes suggest swapping out the apples and using rhubarb instead), and most of the cookbooks were later than Olive’s era. Then I remembered I had come upon an online collection of recipes from precisely that period, compiled from a Connecticut newspaper, and there was a recipe for baked apple pudding (and no rhubarb recipes!). So here is an authentic period recipe but with a bit of tweaking.

This is for you, Olive.



Baked Rhubarb Pudding

Ingredients:

3 cups of stewed rhubarb
1/4 pound (1 stick) of butter
sugar “to taste”
six eggs, well beaten
six crackers, pounded and sifted

To stew your rhubarb: Dice the rhubarb. 


Cook in a saucepan over low heat with 3/4 cup sugar until soft (you might need to add a little water in the beginning to get things started).



When the rhubarb is well stewed but still hot, stir in half the butter (1/2 stick). Taste for sweetness and add additional sugar if needed. Let the mixture cool.



Beat the eggs, and add to the cold rhubarb mixture. Beat well.

Pound and sift six crackers. (Note: I have no idea what crackers were available in 1881. Soda crackers? Saltines? Carr’s Table Water Biscuits? I bought three modern kinds and ground them up. The water biscuits (left) came the closest, I think.)



Butter a baking dish. Put in a layer of crackers, then a layer of rhubarb. Repeat until your dish is filled, ending with a cracker layer. Dot the top with bits of the remaining butter (yes, half a stick). Bake for half an hour.



The original recipe didn’t happen to mention a baking temperature, probably because nobody had a thermostat back then. I guessed 350 degrees, or a medium setting.



It seems to have worked, because the custard set up nicely and the top was lightly browned (with a lot of butter still on the surface). And I’ve discovered that rhubarb tastes better than I expected.

What about you? Do you cook with rhubarb? Do you have any favorite recipes for it?


A Late Frost, the 11th Orchard Mystery, will be released in November.

The story takes place just a bit too early for any new fruits or vegetables to have appeared in Massachusetts, but plenty of apple varieties keep well over the winter if you keep them cool, so they're available for pies.

www.sheilaconnolly.com






14 comments:

  1. I forgot all about the Orchard series. Thanks for the reminder. I like real books for my cozys.

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  2. this is fascinating Sheila! We have the asparagus and rhubarb both in our garden, and I always wonder what to make with the rhubarb. Was this a dessert or a side dish?

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    1. It's sweet (moreso than I expected), so I guess it's a dessert. Is there a rhubarb side dish? I've just started looking for recipes.

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  3. Rhubarb pie!!!! I just bought rhubarb at the Farmers Market and plan to bake my pie this weekend. The recipe I use sprinkles some of the flour/sugar mixture on the bottom crust before adding the rhubarb, add the rhubarb and then sprinkle the remaining flour/sugar mixture over the fruit rather than mixing it all together. Works every time and putting some of flour/sugar on the bottom crust helps keep it from getting soggy.

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    1. How much sugar do you use? My only experience with rhubarb in the past made me think it was pretty sour.

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    2. 1 1/3 cups sugar + 6 TBLS flour to 4 cups of rhubarb. Mix the sugar and flour together and sprinkle 1/4 of it over the bottom crust. Add the cut up rhubarb and sprinkle the remaining sugar/ flour over the top. Dot with butter and add the top crust.

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  4. Thanks for this, Sheila! I always love the history of your recipes. I make a rhubarb cake and my rhubarb will be ready soon. Thanks for the inspiration. Hugs. MJ/VA

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    1. We lived in a house for a couple of years, a long time ago, and it had a rhubarb plant in the garden. But for some reason my mother never cooked with it. Maybe I should plant some? (But then, I planted horseradish a few years ago, in a pot, and I've been afraid to do anything with it. You can tell I'm a great gardener!)

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    2. I should add, I love the old recipes because they assume the cook knows a lot of things, like how hot the oven should be, and how big a cracker is. Now we want detailed recipes.

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  5. My rhubarb is just starting to come up. I don't do much with it, usually a crumble like dish with strawberries and lots of sugar!

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  6. What a treasure to have the copies of the books.

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  7. When I was about 4 we visited my dad's uncle in Colorado. His wife had made a lovely (I'm sure) dinner. For dessert she served rhubarb pie. I took one taste and declared "Ewww. I don't like this stuff." Fortunately everyone laughed. I found out later that Dad didn't like that stuff either but was being polite.

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  8. Last spring I cleaned,cut,bagged & froze 91 quarts of rhubarb. I already have 21 quarts this year & a half of a large refrigerator full to process. We make pies, cakes, cobblers & just plain with heavy cream or ice cream to top it. It is easy to freeze & make desserts with all winter. Thanks for this new recipe, Sheila.

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    Replies
    1. Wow! I feel tired just reading about it. But I did make a lot of applesauce (now frozen) and apple jelly, the last time I had a decent crop. And one round of maple syrup, just to see how it worked.

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