Still Haven't Found It

It's springtime, and I can't find any rhubarb. Plenty of things grow here in Georgia that don't grow as well up North – things I like, like collard greens, sweet potatoes, pecans, peaches, scuppernongs, etc... I would say I love scuppernongs more than rhubarb, except for the fact that I didn't grow up with them. They don't have the same resonance. (What is a scuppernong, you ask? It is a bronzey-green-colored grape native to the Southeast, with a tough, resinous skin, and an amazingly sweet, gelatinous inside which tastes more grapey than any grape you've ever had. You put the whole thing in your mouth, suck out the jelly, pick out the seeds with your tongue, then spit the seeds out along with the skin. And you make grape jelly with them, too. Or wine, which I've never tried, but imagine is a thing of beauty.) Scuppernongs come in late summer, while rhubarb is a spring thing. If you're in Georgia, go to your local farmer's market in August and September and seek out the scuppernongs.

But back to rhubarb. I mentioned its resonance – I always think of my grandmother when I think of rhubarb. My grandmother wasn't big on cooking. What I mean is, she cooked a lot – she made sure everyone was fed, and did it with love. But she didn't invest a lot of mental energy in it – she made a lot of beef and boiled potatoes, spaghetti with jarred sauce (diluted with water so it would last longer), and a lot of pancakes, fried eggs, bacon, and toast. Wonder Bread was the bread of choice. Oscar Mayer bologna was often featured prominently between the two slices of bread.

But my grandmother did do one thing special for me, that I loved more than anything else, and that was to make me rhubarb sauce. Basically she would take rhubarb from the yard, chop it, and cook it with butter and sugar in a saucepan until it was soft and stringy. Then she would spoon the warm, sweet-tart sauce into a bowl, and I would sit there and have three servings. She always let me have as much as I wanted.

The particularly bright part of this memory is when the raspberries were in season. Then she would send me out with a large bowl and I would pick raspberries from the bushes near the shed with the white paint blistering off of it. The door always hung slightly ajar, and a shaft of light would make twisted shadows inside, partially illuminating the broken down and rusty machinery. I would bring her the raspberries and she would add them to the rhubarb sauce. And when there were strawberries, we'd add those.

My dad could have taken over the dairy farm when my grandparents retired, but there was "no living in it," and he went on to college and life raising his family in the suburbs. All of the buildings except for the main house have either been bulldozed or toppled of their own accord. My uncle lives in the main house now with his family. A natural gas company is using the hay field as a staging area for their equipment as they build a pipeline. They are paying my uncle $30,000 for the privilege of using the land, which they are contractually obligated to return "to its original state." Nothing ever returns to its original state, but I keep trying.

Update 4/1/10: Lisa of Lisa's Kitchen informs me that the fresh chickpea salad my three-year-old and I enjoyed so much (and a posse of five-year-olds found "disgusting") has won the March "No Croutons Required" contest! Woohoo! Thank you, Lisa, for letting me know about the contest. April's contest is being hosted by Jacqueline of Tinned Tomatoes, and calls for a salad or soup which features a member of the allium family (ie: onions, garlic, chives, etc....) Be sure to check it out.