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I have a bit of a background in economics so here’s how Supply and Demand works: Supply is the quantity of goods producers can provide; Demand is the quantity of goods consumers want. The intersection of these two things determines the price. This immutable truth is the only thing John Maynard Keynes and Adam Smith agreed on and is true for all goods and services in all countries in all situations.
Except, for some reason, for rhubarb.
Rhubarb is, at least this time of year, all supply and no demand. No demand. None. Zero. Zilch. How can I prove this? Walk outside and see how many neighbors offer you rhubarb? Two? Ten? All of them? Nonetheless, every year around this time, other crops have yet to been harvested so at farmer’s markets everywhere there are stalls that are completely empty save for table after table overflowing with, sigh, rhubarb.
Some farmers at the market even have the audacity to attempt to charge for the stuff?! Yes, it’s just a buck or two for as much as you can carry but that’s about a buck or two more than the going rate. But, as they say, there’s a sucker born every minute.
I know gardeners that grow rhubarb and won’t feed it to their own family. Why, you might wonder, do gardeners grow something they themselves don’t eat? For the same reason athletes warmup. As a gardener, rhubarb builds confidence. You can’t not grow rhubarb. As an eater, however, rhubarb’s a niche market. I mean, even deer won’t eat it. Neither will rabbits.
So, people try to give it away. I walk out my door and my sweetest, kindest, bestest, 80-plus-year-old neighbor (Hi Nancy!) comes at me in a full sprint attempting to thrust rhubarb into my hands. You might think it’s easy to out-maneuver an octogenarian carrying a harvested crop, but you underestimate her at your own peril. Nancy moves like a jaguar hunting a gazelle. I’m telling you, man, she’s fast! Now when I go outside, I carry buckets in each hand. That way, when Nancy offers me rhubarb, I just gesture to my buckets.
I’ve given rhubarb a lot of thought and I believe I have an elegant solution.
After scouring the globe, it turns out, there are people in the world that actually, truly, genuinely (if inexplicably) want rhubarb. Seniors at the senior living homes actually, truly, genuinely (if inexplicably) want rhubarb! They will, and this is hard to believe, not only take your rhubarb, but ask for more! Why, you may ask, would anybody want rhubarb? They claim – and I’m not making this up – they claim to enjoy it!! They say rhubarb is tangy and tart and sour like it’s a good thing?! Really! I swear!
Do you know what the older folks make with rhubarb? Rhubarb-banana muffins; rhubarb-banana bread; rhubarb-apple sauce; rhubarb jelly; rhubarb merengue pie; rhubarb crisps. I even know someone who makes a rhubarb martini! (Hi Evan!) Those capable in the kitchen will notice a pattern in the ingredient list: 1) Rhubarb; and 2) something to cut the rhubarb (sugar; gin; sugar and gin; etc.).
In the end, Rhubarb is a seasonal problem. If we can just get rhubarb to the senior living home, we just may make it through. Soon enough Farmer’s Markets everywhere will have newer, better, different, desirable vegetables that we can cook like fruit. As the wise man once said: This too shall pass.
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