There is a place in the heart of every true-born Englishman that can only be filled by rhubarb crumble. You can find a recipe here, though I don’t understand the reference to double cream. Rhubarb crumble should only ever be served with thick yellow custard.

Now science has proved what we knew all along: This incomparable food is not only surpassingly delicious, it is also healthful:

Rhubarb crumble — the new cancer-busting superfood
Researchers have found that the traditional favourite, like many red vegetables, contains cancer killing chemicals.
And baking the plant for 20 minutes — like in a crumble or pie — dramatically increases their concentration.

Rhubarb has an interesting and exciting history. The Emperors of China used it as a diplomatic weapon, withholding exports of rhubarb to nations that had displeased them. See here:

The imperial commissioner Lin Zexu, who was sent to Canton in 1839 to put an end to the opium trade, wrote a letter to Queen Victoria pointing to the “fact” that the foreign barbarians surely would die if they could not obtain tea and rhubarb from China.

In my childhood, every workingman’s garden had rhubarb growing in some corner. (Under a perforated bucket, to “force” it.) We kids used to eat the noble stalk raw, peeling off the skin — which kid lore said was more lethal than cyanide — and periodically dipping the bitten end into a cupped palm full of sugar.

And people scoff at English cuisine!