Rhubarb Crumble

"The best of all merchandise coming to Samarkand was from China: especially silks, satins, musk, rubies, diamonds, pearls, and rhubarb..."  

 Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo's report of his embassy in 1403–05 to Timur in Samarkand

I'm lucky!  I have an allotment but no rhubarb patch (surprising since I love it so much) but I do have friendly allotment neighbour who struggles with the glut of rhubarb; so I become the happy recipient of an armful of freshly cut rhubarb. Rhubarb - the quintessential British ingredient that other nations think of a medicinal.  Are we the only nation that have taken this prehistoric looking plant and turned it into a pudding?  I remember the ethnobotanist James Wong talking about rhubarb being from China, and brought to the west by traders like Marco Polo but popularised by the Victorians as a dessert (before that it had been used as a laxative). 

Cooked rhubarb crumble

This just happens to be my favourite dessert... this and apple and whortleberry crumble and gooseberry crumble.. can you see a pattern here.  Crumble is that go to dessert that so matches any glut of fruit.  We have to all bow down to the wonderful cook who created this wonderfully simple dish back in the 1940s as a way of 'making-do' with the paucity of ingredients.  

Felicity Cloake from the Guardian provided the definitive recipe for rhubarb crumble.... the only difference being that I swapped out the almonds pieces for hazelnuts... that was a great addition to the crumble topping.