neutral baking powder or shorten the cooking time and you get a light orange pudding) Persimmon flesh can be whipped into a longlived foam thanks to its tannins, which help bind fragments of cell walls together to stabilize the air pockets In Japan, most Hachiya persimmons are dried, massaged every few days to even out the moisture and break down some of the fibrousness to a soft, doughy consistency Food Words: Rhubarb Rhubarb is a medieval Latin coinage, a combination of Greek rha and barbarum: “rhubarb” and “foreign.” Rha also meant the Volga River, so the plant may have been named after it: it came from foreign lands to the east of the Volga Rhubarb Rhubarb is a vegetable that often masquerades as a fruit It is the startlingly sour leaf stalks of a large herb, Rheum rhabarbarum, that is native to temperate Eurasia and became popular in early 19thcentury England as one of the first fruit-like produce items to appear in the early spring The rhubarb root had long been used as a cathartic in Chinese medicine, and traded widely as a medicinal The stalks were also used as a vegetable in Iran and Afghanistan (in stews, with spinach) and in Poland (with potatoes) By the 18th century the English were using them to make sweet pies and tarts The 19th century brought better varieties and techniques for digging up mature roots and forcing rapid stalk growth in warm dark sheds, which produced sweeter, tenderer stalks These improvements, cheaper sugar, and a growing supply resulted in a rhubarb boom, which peaked between the world wars Rhubarb stalks may be red with anthocyanin pigments, green, or an intermediate shade, depending on the variety and production techniques Their acidity is ... medicine, and traded widely as a medicinal The stalks were also used as a vegetable in Iran and Afghanistan (in stews, with spinach) and in Poland (with potatoes) By the 18th century the English... native to temperate Eurasia and became popular in early 19thcentury England as one of the first fruit-like produce items to appear in the early spring The rhubarb root had long been used as a cathartic... 18th century the English were using them to make sweet pies and tarts The 19th century brought better varieties and techniques for digging up mature roots and forcing rapid stalk growth in warm