NosH&Jumper
Yorkshire By Candlelight
Monday March 2nd 2009
The latest of our “In search of Glorious Grub” farm trips has seen a group of eight eager chefs venturing north to Yorkshire, to the famed Rhubarb Triangle around Wakefield, for a fascinating insight into growing and harvesting forced rhubarb.
We were met by Janet Oldroyd Hulme, fourth generation grower and well-known doyenne of the rhubarb industry, who talked us through the whole process of forcing rhubarb; from allowing the plants to grow outside for 2 years so that they can store energy, to transferring the crowns by hand in winter into the long, dark nursery sheds where they are kept warm and dark to speed up growth. Rhubarb loves the soil in this part of Yorkshire and in the heyday of the coal fields, cheap energy was used to heat the forcing sheds and nearly 90% of the world’s champagne rhubarb was grown here.
We were then taken into the forcing sheds to see for ourselves how the stems are picked by hand in near pitch black conditions. Harvesting takes place by candlelight to preserve the younger stems and in the silence of the sheds you really can hear the creaking of the new buds bursting open.
Our chefs left Yorkshire with Grade 1 quality rhubarb and respect for both the product and producers that lovingly nurture this ancient crop. With only 11 out of 200 growers remaining in the UK it is easy to understand why Janet, alongside other Yorkshire growers, is campaigning to get protected name status for this crop.
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