Dear Anne, Thanks for the informative show about rhubarb…I enjoyed listening to your comments. I have a few additions for you concerning rhubarb, which I have also just written about in our blog. Rhubarb was well known in the Zürich area early in the 1900’s. I often refer to an old Zürich cookbook originally written in the 1920’s which has quite a lot of rhubarb recipes. Interestingly, rhubarb was not just a sweet sensation, as there are recipes mixing rhubarb with polenta and swiss chard. Other comments about rhubarb… not the only vegetable treated as fruit: tomatoes and bell peppers also spring to mind. As for your rhubarb recipe, and the issue with potato starch. Potato starch works well, but does not hold it’s binding as long as corn starch or flour. Old recipes often used crackers (zwieback). As for peeling rhubarb…this is not totally necessary. Older plants will dry out and turn rather stringy, but fresh plants do not have this problem. If purchasing at Migros or Coop, then go ahead and peel…if freshly harvested, then no need. Finally, sugar doesn’t neutralize the high acid of rhubarb…it is the fat and spices which neutralize the acid. I wrote about that in our recent posting, which you can find here: http://freshattitude.laughinglemon.ch/post/2009/05/How-I-Make-Rhubarb-Pie.aspx

Hope this is helpful, and I will look forward to listening to your program on a regular basis… Jack