There is a method of growing rhubarb known as “forcing” where the plant grows in complete darkness and is tended to in candlelight. It grows so quickly during this process that you can hear it grow. [1, 2]
Thanks! I hate it.
What kind of horror movie shit is this?
P l a n t
I didn’t think it was possible to make a torture chamber for plants and yet
Anyways, here’s a soundcloud link of forced rhubarb:
They ran out of ways to torture people so they invented ways to torture plants.
I’m trying to look up the history, since bean said it was the British, and he’s right since it was first done in 1817 in the Chelsea Physic Garden, originally named the Apothecaries Garden in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries for plants for medicinal uses, which rhubarb was used for as well.
As for the why… I think it was just one of those old things of “why not?”.
Specifically, it’s noted that rhubarb thrives in cold, wet weather which, jokey stereotypes aside, is pretty much what the weather is like in Britain for several months of the year. In addition, it’s noted that rhubarb grows especially well in nitrogen rich soil which is also quite handily found in abundance in Britain.
This all brings us to the whole candlelit harvesting thing. At some point, farmers realised that rhubarb’s trademark tartness could be eliminated if the plant was grown in the dark at a certain stage, and that the act of doing this actually made the stalks of the plant taste sweet, negating the need for sugar to be added to dishes containing it.
With this information in hand, farmers quickly developed and subsequently refined the process of growing rhubarb in the dark. For example, it was eventually realised that rhubarb could be “forced” to grow by subjecting an immature plant to frost, which nobody had ever really tried before since frost is normally a death sentence for many plants. However, with rhubarb, this merely, as one rhubarb expert notes, “makes the rhubarb crown break its winter dormancy and stimulate the conversion of starch stored in the rhubarb crown to glucose”.
Normally this glucose is used by the entire plant during growth. However, by putting the rhubarb in total darkness at a certain stage, the leaves of plant will be anaemic and wilted, resulting in all of that delicious glucose being left in the plant’s stalk, hence why rhubarb grown in this manner is so much sweeter than rhubarb grown via more traditional means.
Naturally, once this was discovered, farmers began growing rhubarb in specially constructed “forcing sheds” which were kept in total darkness and kept warm by whatever means they had available. Prior to this, the rhubarb was and still is simply left in a field for around two years to allow the roots to grow while periodically being covered in nitrogen rich fertiliser. In the 18th century, the fertiliser used was mostly manure and something known as shoddy (essentially discarded woolen fibres) sourced from wool manufacturers. Today, however, farmers mostly use manure which in addition to being cheap and plentiful, stops thieves stealing the rhubarb.
oh fuck that soundcloud link. imagine hearing this in the dead of night
This, also keep in mind that the “American cowboy” has been exaggerated greatly by Hollywood and popular myth - it was really only a twenty/thirty year period in the mid-19th century that essentially ended around the American civil war when barbed wire was introduced and eliminated the need for them.
WHATCH OUT FOR SHARKS!
