Rhubarb, roó barb, n. a plant whose leaf-stalks are used for culinary purposes, and its root used in medicine as a purgative.

A perennial long-living herb (Rheum rhaponticum) native to Siberia and related to dock; heart-shaped, wavy leaves can be poisonous; 6-petalled small white flowers; edible stalks, red or green. (Family: Polygonaceae)

In the Opium War (1839–42) the Chinese authorities stopped exports of rhubarb in the belief that British soldiers would give up the fight when constipated. They were wrong.

I am proud to live in the heart of Yorkshire’s Rhubarb Country in the frost pocket below the Pennines where market gardeners know what to do with the land to make it fertile. Some say the ground is like the ground of Siberia. We have much rain, plentiful coal and coke to heat the rhubarb sheds and shoddy from the mills that contains nitrogen and does the roots good. It is as if they are covered by a cloak that feeds them.

First of all the plant was used as a medicine for the gut and inner organs. Marco Polo brought the drug to Europe and to Britain where it did not work as a medicine. Only rich people could afford it as it was three times as expensive as opium and gave them the runs. It was used to bake pies instead.

Some people write that in Chelsea Physic Gardens in 1817 rhubarb roots were accidentally covered by a plant pot over the winter. When the plant pot was moved in the spring, tender shoots were discovered. This was the start of the rhubarb we now grow and call Forced Rhubarb. This is poppycock. I happen to know the real fact. A gardener from Rothwell found this out, not a person from Chelsea. These roots were then forced in sheds in the dark.

Forced rhubarb is pink or red and is good for you. Here is my own experience of going into a rhubarb shed with my next door neighbour Kate Hood and our friends.

It was February. The ground was frosty. There was frost on the hedgerows. We left our bikes by the road and walked along the edge of the fields. Bobby’s uncle works with the rhubarb so we know things about being careful. Outside the shed were two very heavy spades. This is because rhubarb roots weigh as much as a robust child or even more. Only heavy spades can lift the roots which must not be damaged. It was completely dark in the shed and warm as well because no air comes in and the rhubarb likes to be hot and heat comes along the pipes from the stove. We brought a whole box of matches and a candle. Candles are what the men use when they lift the rhubarb. Kate said that the rhubarb knows there is light above the roof and that is why it reaches up and grows. We each took it in turns to hold a candle under our chins, to look like a terrifying creature.