Rhubarb

A few days ago, I was tempted to buy a couple of bunches of rhubarb from the Thursday market man. To get home, to find that BH had bought rhubarb from Sainsbury's the day before - stewed, as it happened, for lunch that very day. And very good it was too, proper green and red rhubarb, not like that forced, pink stuff they send down from up-north earlier in the year.

However, that left us with rather more rhubarb than the menu for the week ahead called for. But then, I had a brain wave: why not make rhubarb cordial, something which is clear, pink and tasty and which we have made on at least one occasion in the past? As I recall, we might have made so much of it that it fermented slightly in the bottle.

But how does one make it in the first place? Radiation Cook Book nil. Boston Cook Book nil. Food in England nil. At which point I turned to reference 2, noticed at reference 1. There I found various recipes for soft drinks which could be made out of garden produce, a lot of them involving milk and quite possibly the precursors of what became milk shakes in drug stores in the US.

Including one, in the antique recipes section at the end, for something called rhubarb kissel, nearly all of which is snapped above.

They seemed keen that one should take it cold.

Improvising a bit, I did not think to weigh the rhubarb but there must have been between one and two pounds, that is to say, a bunch and a bit. To which I added to two pints of water and six ounces of granulated sugar - and then simmered for a bit, maybe ten minutes. BH denied all knowledge of potato starch and offered corn flour - at which point I remembered that there were a couple of cold Jersey Royals left over from lunch, so I grated them into the mix instead.

Thought about adding some lemon, but held off until I had tried it for sweetness. In the event, no lemon.

Strained off the green rhubarb fibre with the colander, but then thought to pass the liquor through a sieve. The bottle being a souvenir of the expedition previously noticed at reference 3.

The odd thing was that there was a lot of fine sludge in the mix, a lot more than was accounted for by the potato and sludge which clogged up the sieve big-time. Perhaps adding the potato - rather sticky to grate - had made something like a thin wallpaper paste. Should I have just poured the whole lot into the bottle?

In the event, the bottle was full to the brim, so a bit more than a litre for my two pints of water etc.

Tasted rather good, cold as instructed. Probably not the thing to drink in pints, but by the small tumbler, rather good. Quite different from the clear stuff I remember from the last occasion.

PS 1: by late afternoon of the next day (Sunday), quite a lot of pale sediment had sunk to the bottom of the bottle, just about visible in the snap above. But this did not leave the liquor above clear. 

Sediment notwithstanding, the litre of kissel went down pretty well on a warm evening and was finished by close that day. All my own work as BH thought it was a bit fattening - as indeed it was with its 6oz of sugar or 670 calories - against a recommended intake of say 2,500 for someone of my age and habits. There is also the question of my low fluid regime. So, all in all, perhaps not something that I should be making too often

PS 2: not particularly expensive, perhaps the same per pint as one of the cheaper bitters at Wetherspoon's.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/oleaster-removal.html.

Reference 2: The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food - Ministry of Food, USSR - 1936.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/to-market.html.

Reference 4: https://www.rbth.com/russian_kitchen/2016/11/10/rhubarb-kissel-a-peasant-dessert-fit-for-a-king_646665. For another take on it all - a take which comes, on my laptop anyway, with rather curious advertisements.