Rhubarb tart
 | |
| Type | Tart |
|---|---|
| Main ingredients | Pastry shell, rhubarb |
Rhubarb tart is a tart filled with rhubarb.
Mrs Beeton's recipe requires half a pound of puff pastry, five large sticks of rhubarb and quarter of a pound of sugar with a little lemon juice and lemon zest to taste. This is baked for 30 to 45 minutes and serves five people at a cost of ninepence.[1]
Rhubarb was used medicinally as a purgative and this caused it to have unpleasant associations. To make the dish more acceptable, rhubarb tart was sometimes renamed Spring apples in the 19th century.[2]
In the arts
Rhubarb tart was celebrated in the radio show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again in which it was a running joke. Examples included the pun Rhubarb Tart of Omar Khayyam (Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam) and The Rhubarb Tart Song which went:[3]
...
A rhubarb what? A rhubarb tart!
A whatbarb tart? A rhubarb tart!
I want another slice of rhubarb tart!
...
Notable consumers
- Friedrich Ludwig Georg von Raumer, who wrote in his account of England that he was a "very industrious eater of rhubarb tart".[4]
References
- ^ Isabella Mary Beeton, The book of household management
- ^ "The Garden", Blackwood's Magazine, February 1853
- ^ Jack Staub, 75 Remarkable Fruits for Your Garden
- ^ Albany Fonblanque, "Von Raumer's England", England under seven administrations, vol. 3