Rhubarb Rhubarb Rhubarb ...

For much of my life I’ve had what some would term an irrational vendetta against rhubarb. The only thing I like about it is the way it sounds. I firmly hold the belief that it is essentially a form of sweet celery and, as anyone who has ever had a celery dessert would agree, that’s not a brilliant idea (I’m not one of those people, luckily, because it sounds like a really, really bad idea). I should mention that I’ve never actually tasted this particular vegetable (fruit?) and am basing my opinion entirely upon its appearance, but even so. I have long resisted the fruitless efforts of my family to force rhubarb upon me.

Anyway, a lifetime’s worth of abstinence from rhubarb came to a conclusion about ten minutes ago, when I came home to discover a tray of muffins on the kitchen bench. I regarded them approvingly.

‘You should have a muffin,’ my mother suggested.

‘What’s in them?’

‘Raspberries and… other things,’ she said deceptively. My clue should probably have been in the fact that she said it deceptively.

I naively responded by removing a muffin from the tray, taking it upstairs and starting work on one of my assignments. I was well into the second paragraph when I absent-mindedly picked up the muffin and bit into it. My absent-mindedness was short lived.

I promptly dashed downstairs to encounter my mum, smugly happy in the realisation of her evil plan.

‘Did you like the muffins?’ she cackled manically. Or possibly just said normally. I definitely remember it being in an evil tone of voice, though.

‘ARE YOU TRYING TO POISON ME?’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, as if she hadn’t just had an integral part in a plan to take my life.

‘There’s RHUBARB in this!’

She appeared less ashamed of herself than I would have liked. ‘Yes. Did you like it?’

I looked at her coldly. ‘No. It was horrible. You spoiled a perfectly good muffin.’

She shrugged, and I went back upstairs to try and get back to work. Then I decided that it would be a better use of my time to blog about the things I eat. That’s because I’m impractical, and is also my mum’s fault, somehow.

Unfortunately, I now have to impart a terrible, terrible secret.

Rhubarb is freaking delicious. It’s got a sort of pleasantly tangy jam-like taste and is nothing whatsoever like celery (not that I eat celery. Rhubarb is one thing, but I will never be enticed to eating celery).

But now I can never reveal it to my family, (a) because that would mean going back on eighteen years of consistent anti-rhubarb-ism, and I like to be consistent, and (b) then my mother would win. And I will NOT let my mother win this battle of wills. That’s absolutely what it is. It’s not just me being childish.

So goodbye for now. I have to go and finish my muffin, while mourning the loss of a fruit that I never knew well, and now will never have the chance to get to know. Or possibly a vegetable.