Rhubarb Rhubarb

The thought of rhubarb makes me heave. I can’t help it. I was forced to eat it as a child by irresponsible and sadistic infant and junior school teachers who assumed that I was play acting as I retched when spoon fed the foul substance. Was it so difficult to see that I was clearly in a state of distress? Those teachers are in my black book – even after all this time. What they did was unforgivable and cruel.

Sadly this kind of appalling behaviour was prevalent in the sixties and seventies. The teachers thought they knew better as they shoved all manner of disgusting foodstuffs down our throats; prunes, damsons, figs, dates, liver – the list was endless. But for me, the worst by a light year was rhubarb.

It is the only food of any description that makes me throw up. The taste is revolting and activates a cataclysmic chain reaction deep within my abdomen. Not only does it taste revolting, it looks utterly repulsive. And it is poisonous (well the leaves are anyway).

I would love to know which masochist spotted a rhubarb plant and thought “Now there’s a strange looking piece of vegetation; I think I’ll stew that”. That person is one of my least favourite people in history. Without that person, my sadistic infant and junior school teachers wouldn’t have rammed it down my throat and instilled in me a morbid fear of school puddings.