Growing in the dark, dancing in the light

"the holy grail of rhubarb" Yotam Ottolenghi

In his newsletter recently Yotam Ottolenghi told his readers about "the most unexpectedly beautiful six minutes of film I’ve seen all year" - a video about a family growing forced rhubarb in West Yorkshire called - The rhubarb triangle, I urge you to watch it - as one commenter said - it is strangely moving. Watch it before you read on, as moments in this video are unexpected. And to add to the strangeness of it all it was made by a perfume company - ffern - to introduce their new perfume - based on the smell of rhubarb.

There are two ways to grow rhubarb - out in the open fields - or, as happens here, for the the last part of the growing process in sheds in the dark. And this is what we are seeing in this video. "It's a technique that goes back millennia" says Ottolenghi, and the particular family in this film have been growing it for 5 generations. It feels like longer. One can believe in the millenia comment. The farm is humble, the weather is obviously freezing there is sleet, not snow - a particularly miserable form of precipitation I remember from my childhood. One could easily imagine it all in a medieval setting - minus the tractor and cars and trucks driving by on the nearby motorway.

Why grow rhubarb in the dark? Well because there is no light the rhubarb grows steadily upwards, sometimes centimetres a day, and all the energy goes into the stalks which are a beautiful pink.

“We cut out the photosynthesis. So there’s no chlorophyll in there and the sugar stays in the stick rather than going into the leaves,” Robert Tomlinson, farmer

At one point West Yorkshire grew 80-90% of the world's forced rhubarb, but of course the tradition is dying - one of the comments made in the film was that just a short while ago there were 50 or so families in the area carrying on the tradition. Now there are only 10 or 11. The old farmers are retiring and the young are not interested, although the family in the video - the Cooks, have a son who is very interested in continuing the tradition, and in fact restored the shed in which it is grown.

The other unusual thing is that this is a winter crop - field rhubarb comes later in the year. Of course it is expensive. I looked online and found one producer charging $14.40 for 500g. But then I guess for a real treat, if you have money to spare, why not? I do not think we can get it here in Australia, and apparently it's even difficult to find in the UK - restaurants take a large portion of it, and some is exported to restaurants overseas as well.

One of the most magical moments in the film - and there are a few - was the harvest. In the dark, lit by candles on stalks here and there in the shed. Yes candles. There was an air of magic, mysticism, ancient ritual, even religion, or at the very least, spirituality about what was in fact a practical thing, emphasised by the mundane packing of the rhubarb into long boxes by the women of the family. But with such care. "I was hypnotised watching the family work with such care; generations that have perfected just one thing," said Ottolenghi, and yes it is hypnotic with a soundtrack filled with ambient sounds and music that is just perfect for the overall feeling the video brings.

And then there is the little girl who opens and closes the film. The spirit of the whole thing really. At the start, as she dances, you hear her say she doesn't know much about rhubarb - it reminds her of radishes. She tap dances - in itself a very old-fashioned form of dance - by an open window in front of a rack of costumes, shyly, but with so much joy and freedom - I made a screen shot as she danced behind the titles. It's a performance - that she does with obvious pride and satisfaction. I almost shed a tear. Magical. And, as you can see from my screen shot, she does it as the titles roll. Simulatneously a long way from rhubarb - remember she didn't even really know much about it - and yet embodying the whole thing.

Less magical - well sort of magical in a very different way is a very short video that Ottolenghi also linked us to - a male choir singing an Ode to rhubarb.

Rhubarb itself demands a post all of its own sometime but I shall just share some pictures of a few things to represent the range of what can be done with rhubarb - with rhubarb fool first - and top of my list. The others are Delia's rhubarb ice-cream for which she makes a rhubarb crumble, and then blitzes it before stirring it into ice-cream. Ottolenghi makes a cordial and there is a Persian classic dish khoresh-e-rivas.

Another time.

In the meantime watch the video - it will take you to another time and another place, and make you think of ancient times, and hope for the future in a strange kind of way. Perhaps it's a reminder that life endures no matter what. If you're feeling down it will calm and soothe.

Well that's what I thought anyway. Of course the human race is so varied others may just be bored.