The history of rhubarb: medicinal uses, recipes and why owning it in Russia once meant a warrant for your death
- According to Chinese legend, ‘Divine Farmer’ Shen Nong noted that rhubarb could be used to cure diarrhoea as early as 2800BC
- It became a highly sought-after and prohibitively expensive medicine in Europe, up to 10 times as expensive as cinnamon and four times as expensive as saffron
Considered an important medicine in China for thousands of years, rhubarb has had many ups and downs over its long history of human consumption.
Its leaves, packed with toxic oxalic acid, might once have poisoned a US president; in the 1600s, smuggling valuable rhubarb root warranted death in Russia; and centuries later, when the heavily sugared stalks were used in desserts, rhubarb was mercilessly lampooned as a horrible British school pudding.
Rhubarb has now come full circle, from important medicinal laxative to dessert delicacy. The vegetable’s pink stalks are served in fine restaurants, perhaps roasted with orange and crystallised puff pastry, poached and served with melon granita, or simmered with orange juice and presented as sweet soup.
But rhubarb has been around much longer as a medicine than it has been enjoyed as a dessert, and it is noted in what is thought to be the first text on traditional Chinese medicine, The Herbal Classic of Shen Nong, said to date from the third century. Known as the “Divine Farmer”, the mystical and mythical Shen Nong is believed to have lived around 2800BC. According to Chinese legend, Shen Nong tested many types of potentially medicinal plants on himself. He classified rhubarb as a herb and noted that “the roots and rhizomes of rhubarb” could be used to cure diarrhoea.
These days, rhubarb root is still used in traditional Chinese medicine and by Chinese people around the world to treat stomach ailments, especially constipation.
