Bookstore cookbook aisles are lined with images reflecting our very online, very visible lives. Curated photos of perfect dishes and happy, beautiful chefs and cooks and influencers spooning sauces or licking sugar-free frosting from their fingers all with a promise that you too can attempt to be that perfect. Nina Mukerjee Furstenau has broken away from the filtered take on food though with her current release The Pocket Rhubarb Cookbook (Belt Publishing). A food writer and podcaster, Furstenau has lived up to her idea that the ultimate story of humankind is growing in our soil. This book is a love story to one of the most underrated spring ingredients—one every grandma loved—and that, with the help of Furstenau’s recipes, will see a nostalgic renewal.
The book is indeed pocket sized. There are no images for the recipes, the cover is a simple sketch of the titular ingredient: rhubarb. The first section explores its history and medicinal properties, and how to grow it yourself. A historic first recipe from 1806, is the very one my own great grandmother used constantly with her Indiana backyard rhubarb. A simple concoction of rhubarb, sugar and water, cooked down to a caramel-like sauce to be served as a dessert in a tart or on ice cream. Most of the recipes shared within Furstenau’s pages are as simple as the original one; yet she goes beyond the expected dessert dishes like pie and crumble. Furstenau shares old favorites, but adds in savory ways to utilize your farmers market or personal garden bounty. The recipes are easy to follow, take up no more than a page or two, and never lack a bit of flavor or beauty even without the professional photography to show those cooking at home what your end result should look like.
I started with the desserts when cooking through the recipes, because I too have only ever ventured down rhubarb lane when it is covered in sugar and mixed with another fruit. I never thought to use rhubarb as a vegetable, which it indeed is. I first cooked the upside-down rhubarb cake, the rhubarb curd and the rhubarb cheesecake. The rhubarb crumble was a return picnic favorite with its crispy, chewy, cinnamon-laced topping, perfect with a dollop of cream or scoop of vanilla ice cream on a warm summer day. The curd that is also used in the cheesecake was my favorite when it came to dessert. The touch of cinnamon from the graham cracker crust, the velvety texture of the cheesecake and sour bite of the rhubarb curd hit with a bit of lemon, made this the ultimate say-hello-to-warm-weather special occasion treat.
What surprised me the most about this little cookbook packed with recipes that span multiple categories and wants, is that rhubarb's sleeper hit is savory dishes. My favorite was the Rhubarb Tagine with Chickpeas. A dish so rich in flavor that even my vegetal-averse children happily ate it. The sour tang of the rhubarb was balanced by warm spices like cinnamon, cumin, and cayenne, plus the sweetness of chopped dates and honey. I served it with flatbread and lapped up each remaining swipe of sauce.
The Pocket Rhubarb Cookbook feels like a bound collection of your grandma’s secret recipes. They are long passed down, adjusted until full satisfaction, not trendy, and definitely aren’t sponsored. Furstenau took what we learn from her book is a worldly ingredient—one certain North American locales claim as their own—and mixed it with her own Northeast Indian heritage and American hometown, and learned and added traditions in the midwest. Furstenau's latest collection of recipes, giving an ode to a single fruit of this earth, feels like something special, foraged while sifting through papers in an old cookie tin. This book will be found, cherished, passed on like memory.
The Pocket Rhubarb Cookbook by Nina Mukerjee Furstenau can be found wherever you buy books. For more information, visit beltpublishing.com or ninafurstenau.com.
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