A little experiment

In my garden I have rhubarb. Two sorts of rhubarb, in fact: a modern variety called ‘Timperly Early’ and a heritage variety called’ Prince Albert’.

Timperly Early dates from the 1920s and is really vigorous. You’re not supposed to pick rhubarb for the first year or so to let it establish, and you’re not supposed to force it for a few years for the same reason, yet my plant was being picked in the first year and forced in the second with no ill effects (in fact it was being picked again in the summer after being forced in the winter/spring because it was starting to block access to the shed!). Prince Albert dates from the late 1830s and took much longer to establish. It’s next door to my Timperly Early so the growing conditions aren’t hugely different yet it’s taken about 3 or 4 years to grow big enough to be picked. (I should also note that I've already harvested some stems from the Timperly Early a couple of weeks ago whereas the Prince Albert hasn't been touched yet).

Timperly Early to the left of the chimney pot, Prince Albert to the right

As I’m home for rhubarb-picking time I thought I’d do a little taste test. I tried to keep it as scientific as I could, though because I’m the one doing the tasting it isn’t blinded, unfortunately.

First I picked a stem of each plant, trying to get stems of equivalent thickness. Prince Albert is definitely a smaller and thicker plant than Timperly Early, and I thought it might end up being tougher.

Left: Timperly Early, Right: Prince Albert

I removed the leaf and the base of the stem and then peeled it where possible by pulling the outer layer off. Then I cut it into approximately inch-long pieces and put them in saucepans. I then thought I’d better check I had the same amount for each plant so weighed them. I had 170g of the Timperly Early and 200g of the Prince Albert.

Left: Timperly Early, Right: Prince Albert

I added 1 level tbsp of granulated sugar and 5 tbsp water to each saucepan (this turned out to be too much water so I had to drain some off before serving). I then cooked them on a medium heat until tender which turned out to be pretty much the same length of time for both (about 10 minutes), though the Prince Albert started falling apart more quickly.

Left: Timperly Early, Right: Prince Albert

The most noticeable difference is the colour. Timperly Early has a distinctly pink hue whereas Prince Albert is very much green. This isn’t that surprising when you look at the colour of the stems – Timperly Early is much redder.

But the thing I’m interested in is the taste so how do they fare?

Well, this is where my descriptive abilities fail me. The Timperly Early tastes, well, like rhubarb. It’s got a hint of an earthy flavour, I think, and is quite tart, but in a good way. The Prince Albert is a more subtle flavour but is a touch sweeter. The more I try them the more the difference between the two becomes apparent. The textures are as close to identical as makes no difference but the Prince Albert has definitely more of a clear sweetness without much depth, while the Timperly Early has more of the tartness characteristic of rhubarb. If I had to choose I’d say I prefer the Prince Albert but the Timperly Early is definitely more ‘rhubarby’.

It’s been really fun doing this little experiment. I wasn’t sure there’d be much of a difference but it’s nice to know that there is. It’s interesting to see that the modern variety has the more characteristic flavour, when we hear so much about how modern varieties aren’t as good as the older ones. It seems that instead of moving towards more sweetness and less complexity of flavour, in these two cultivars of rhubarb at least, we’ve actually gone the other way.

Comments

scilady said…
Tart ones are for cooking into jams, sauce for pork and oily fish etc, and the sweet ones for crumble and pies? There is also now a perennial variety (from Marshalls) that can be harvested till November for rhubarb fans.
13 April 2017 at 01:31
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