Come the Revolution

Botanically speaking, rhubarb is a vegetable, but a clever New York court decreed in 1947 that, since we use it like a fruit, we should call it a fruit. This suits me fine, since it means that even in Vermont (where we won’t have fresh local strawberries until late June at best) we can expect the first fruit of the season in May.

Some long time ago, my grandfather put a patch of rhubarb out behind the farmhouse. It grew next to an old shed still affectionately referred to as the chicken house, in the shade of a big thorn tree. I grew up eating the stuff — in the summer my cousins and I would pull big stalks off the plant and dip the ends in sugar, gnawing off big puckery bites and going back for more. As far back as I can remember, we young’ns were the only ones who ever picked it.

The chicken house came down a few years back, and this year the thorn tree finally stuck the wrong person and was cut into firewood, but the rhubarb patch is still there and thriving. When we visited my family last week I took the opportunity to harvest a couple of pounds. I can’t wait to move somewhere with a little bit of land, so I can take a division of that prolific plant.

Last week I broke out the canner and made a simple batch of rhubarb jam. It’s exciting to have something fresh in the pantry, and to already have something to show for this season: the first fruits of spring, all saved up in a jar.

(That hat, by the way? We picked it up on our visit to Hancock Shaker Village — another fixture of my childhood.)

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