Rhu - (gag) - rhu (gag, gag) - rhu - barb

Have you ever eaten or drank something, that when that particular food or drink was mentioned, you turned green?

Well, I have. I can only say it triggers a response akin to gagging and flaring of nostrils all rolled into one motion.

My Papaw Wymer and Mimi (mi - me) grew a lot of their food. They not only had a garden, but they had an apple tree, a pear tree, a black walnut tree, and raspberry bushes. I love, love, love raspberries!

But this isn't about raspberries, or pears, or apples or even walnuts. It is about a most disgusting - well, I don't know whether to call it a fruit or a vegetable - thing. Rhubarb.


Just typing it makes me recall the most horrible food experience I can remember. Papaw and Mimi had rhubarb growing at the foot of the hill behind their house. I went with Papaw one day to pick the rhu (gag), rhu (gag) - rhu - barb ~ ~. He's cutting it off near the bottom of the plant (it looks like red celery to me) and placing it in a basket. We are moving right along. All is well with my soul, until I notice him cutting off a piece every now and then and popping it in his mouth. I watched and I wanted. I couldn't stand it any longer, so I asked, (I can't believe I did it to this day), I asked. . . . for . . . . a . . . . bite. (gag, I'm ok, gag). For the love of money I can't even begin to describe the taste. I thought I was going to hurl everything in my body right then and there. It was, without a doubt, the most horrible thing I had ever tasted. I do vaguely recall (during a mental, physical and emotional meltdown) asking myself, "how could he eat that stuff?". "How?" This is still a mystery to me to this very day. Every time I see the word, rhubarb, I suffer flashbacks, and - nausea, my gag reflexes kick in, my stomach flinches, and I can smell what it tasted like!

That was fifty plus years ago! Now that is some kinda nasty stuff.

I haven't tasted it since.


I can't.

And you know what is really a sin about this? People try to disguise it in, of all things, strawberry pie! The only thing putting rhubarb in strawberry pie accomplishes is ruining a perfectly good strawberry pie.

Come and get it! ! ! Nasty Rhubarb and strawberry pie! Noooo thank yooouu!

Should be against the law.



Moral of the story - never, I say, never, ask for a bite of red celery!