Another Dress, Another Mind: "The chatter RHUBARBed and overlapped."

Friday, March 30, 2012

"The chatter RHUBARBed and overlapped."

— H. Sawler · One Single Hour · 2004

RHUBARB is almost as cool as a word as it is as a vegetable — especially as a vegetable with lots of sugar, butter, pie crust, and whipped cream.

English actor Cedric Hardwicke (1893-1964)
Image from: always1895.net

Everybody knows I adore the O.E.D. (and rhubarb pie). Not everyone knows that according to the O.E.D., "rhubarb" is a verb, meaning:

— "trans. Air Force. To strafe (a target) opportunistically," as in, "Butch and I rhubarbed a French freight train bound for a Channel port."

— "trans. To mumble (one's way) through something."

— "intr. orig. Theatre. Of an actor or actors: to repeat the word ‘rhubarb’ so as to represent an indistinct conversation or the noise of a crowd," as in, "Cedric Hardwicke as a Blimpish general rhubarbing into his lunch about the evils of bottled horse-radish."

My Rhubarb Pie

I'm fond of horseradish, too, by the way. Especially with Baltimore-style pit beef like you get from Boog's Barbeque at Camden Yards.

But back to rhubarb. The two bulbs (or rhizomes, actually) that I planted last spring eventually died to the ground (in November), but they came back this spring, heartier than before. Quite nice, actually. If I had a few more plants, I'd have plenty for a pie. As it is, we'll have to see what happens later in the season.

Here's the early development: 2/17, 2/22, and today (3/30).