Rhubarb

For much of the world, the coming of rhubarb heralds the arrival of spring; for those of us in England, it appears brightly in the bleak midwinter, absurdly, improbably pink, the colour of hope, filled with all the light that is missing from our skies. My heart lifts every time it comes into season towards the end of December. How could it not? Yorkshire forced rhubarb, which is started off outside, but then transplanted inside, cultivated in the dark and harvested by candlelight, is one of our greatest culinary treasures: hot pink from the cold earth, its stalks are more tender, their texture more delicate, and the taste purer and more vibrant than the hefty red rhubarb that comes later, out in the open, and which, as the year moves on, and the stalks grow thicker and greener, all too often cooks to a fibrous khaki mush.