Rhubarb and custard

Now sheltered by our large greenhouse and fortified by plenty of well-rotted manure, our rhubarb is going strong.  We have a mixture of varieties - we paid £5.00 for a pot from a garden centre, (afterwards H said she could have given us a root for free) and some more from a temporary contract my husband undertook in Highgate.   I have forgotten which is which.

We do not force our rhubarb, although the old-fashioned method is to bring it on under large clay pots.  This works, should you wish to eat tender pink rhubarb in January.  I prefer to let my rhubarb grow sturdily at its own rate.   I pulled about eight to ten stalks for the first crumble of March 2014 served with custard as my husband prefers.

Rhubarb has its place in history on my maternal side.  An uncle of my mother's by marriage was a farmer in what has become the Greater Manchester borough of Trafford.  He ploughed with horses and grew rhubarb.   We used to visit him and my great aunt as children in the Sixties.   The farm was long gone, but the horse brasses remained.   Many times when driving through the area my mother used to shout out this simple and succinct advertising slogan of her younger days: 'Eat more rhubarb!'.

I wonder if one of our rhubarb varieties is Timperley Early.  A pleasing homage to my Cheshire forbears if it were so.