Once upon a time, we fed ourselves from our gardens in summer and preserved like mad to make it through the snowy months. As those fermented, jellied, or chilled in a root cellar gave out, sprouted, grew fur, or got soft and mushy, we anxiously watched for dandelion greens and fiddleheads to limp through The Starving Time until fields and gardens were once again productive. Is it any wonder that previous generations admired pucker-up-sweet/sour rhubarb as ersatz fruit? As true and loyal as an old farm dog, the patch yielded early, consistently, and with virtually no input from us.
Our society has long departed from the days of waiting for things to be in season or to emerge from canning jars and freezer bags. We can have “fresh” kiwi and bananas every day of the year if we pay for shipment from another hemisphere. Our wonderful customers of the Presque Isle Farmers Market, dedicated to locally grown, genuinely fresh produce, try hard to take the whine out of their voices when they repeat over and over, “When are the strawberries going to come?”
It has been a different sort of spring this year, hasn’t it? We spend early mornings huddled under a couple of cats, only to swelter through afternoons when these sensible animals flop motionless in front of a fan. Grass rapidly grows to epic proportions in frequent rains. But this may be the summer that our gardens yield none of the chancy longer day varieties we settled upon to try. While garden seeds germinating in chilled soil stall out, the clock ticks loudly toward first frost.
The local strawberry plants survived the long winter handily with adequate snow cover. The blossoms look beautiful, innumerable stars in the dark green background laced across the rows. With the right orientation on a southern slope and a sandy soil, they are beginning to show bountiful fruit. But our customers are right. Though well worth the wait, Aroostook County berries are slow to come this year.
“But I always have a strawberry rhubarb pie over the Fourth of July weekend.” Hold the thought; they are coming. In the meantime, let’s give our ancestral buddy a chance to shine solo. Available from several vendors at the Presque Isle Farmers Market on Saturday mornings in the Aroostook Centre Mall parking lot, rhubarb gets to be the star of this show and will generously share the stage with the berries in another week or so. Give this a try!
Rhubarb Cake
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9×13 baking pan. Cream together 1 1/2 cups of white sugar and 1/2 cup of butter. Beat in 2 eggs and 1/3 cup of milk. Sift together 2 cups white flour, 1 teaspoon each baking soda and cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon each cloves, allspice, and salt. Stir into egg mixture along with 2 cups of chopped rhubarb. Spread in the prepared pan. Sprinkle with mixed cinnamon and sugar or chopped nuts if desired. Bake 35 minutes.
The Presque Isle Farmer’s market’s president is Kevin Ehst of Hidden Meadow Farm in Bridgewater. For information about participating or visiting the market, contact him at 425-4050 or via email at kevins@ehst.com.
