February

Hail to kale, it's as good as – if not better than – broccoli, yet it doesn't get the accolade it deserves; so let's give it some!

Celebrate... purple sprouting broccoli

This humble vegetable is going through a purple patch and rightly so.

Make the most of... guinea fowl

Don't underestimate this hardy little bird; it secured a place in history a long time ago (the ancient Egyptians were partial, as were the Elizabethans) and it's eaten all over the world.

February seasonal foods

Don't forget to make the most of succulent game, such as guinea fowl and partridge, and say 'Well, hello!' to tender rhubarb.

Everything you ever wanted to know about rhubarb...

...but were just too darn busy to ask.

Pretty in pink

Don’t let painful memories of bad school dinner puddings put you off. Tom Norrington-Davies celebrates the season of forced rhubarb, which is lured out of its hibernation to be the perfect foil for custard and crumble.

Some words make uneasy bedfellows. Blood and orange, for example, sounds a bit gothic, while champagne and rhubarb are hardly two words you would expect to utter in one breath. Unless of course, you were in the know about, well, champagne rhubarb, which is more often referred to as forced or winter rhubarb.

I’ve never been quite sure where the champagne tag sprang from. It might allude to the fact aficionados regard it as the crème de la crème of its kind, or that winter rhubarb was, until recently, rare and expensive – unlike its semi-feral cousin that lurks at the bottom of the garden.

Considering the ease with which summer rhubarb will colonise a corner of your backyard, forcing it does seem a laborious and involving pastime. The rhubarb is lured out of its natural winter hibernation by contrived warmth and darkness, a little like the white chicory or asparagus so beloved by the French and Belgians. Long, delicate stems are thrown up quickly, desperately reaching for the light that never comes. The stalk remains rose-pink and never gets the green tinge or big canopy of leaves that photosynthesis would allow, so it has a more delicate flavour and a less fibrous texture than the outdoor kind.

The area around Wakefield in Yorkshire is famous for its forcing sheds: long, low barn-like structures where the rhubarb is grown in darkness and picked by candlelight. And you thought blood oranges sounded spooky!

The season for Yorkshire rhubarb starts tentatively in late December and can last until the end of March, and so fine is this rhubarb that I now think of it as an intrinsically ‘winter thing’. I look forward to the season. Rhubarb is one of those strange fruits that never quite suited the summer (strictly speaking, it is a vegetable like a chard or beet). Rhubarb pie is splendid, and crumble is even better – but these are rib-sticking, winter puddings that cry out for jugs of heart-warming custard. I’d rather eat them with a howling gale outside than pass them around the garden with the Pimms.

"Champagne rhubarb is more often referred to as forced, or winter, rhubarb"

Rhubarb and custard: now there is another odd couple that were actually made for each other. If you’re open-mouthed with indignation at the idea, then I’d hazard a guess that your education is to blame. Rhubarb that is cheap as chips, stringy and po-facedly sour, and the chalky blandness of powdered custard only provides fond memories for strange people who end up joining gentlemen’s clubs. The world’s worst school pudding is a mile – no, aeons – away from the real thing, as I hope my recipe will prove.

In fact, if you are generally suspicious of rhubarb, now is the time to try it. For one, it is so pretty pink that it almost looks like candy. This makes it perfect for rather aesthetically pleasing puds, in the same way that all those marvellously girlie soft fruits can be in the summer.

More importantly, perhaps, it is a beacon of fruitiness in a barren, windswept time of year. Of course, there are stone fruits from the Cape, tropical pineapples or mangoes and shockingly indifferent top fruit from polytunnels anywhere the sun is still showing its face each day. But there is also champagne from Yorkshire!