Rhubarb and Salt

My friend Shauna's dad, Mark, grew a huge garden every year. It was standard procedure to see the tomatoes growing off the vine and corn stalks waving in the wind. And yes, we got a lot of wind. Their neighbors, the Lambs, also grew a garden every year. Sometimes Mark and Brother Lamb would combine efforts in watering, weeding, planting, and taking care of their gardens. I was always grossed out by the amount of dirt and mud involved. To this day, I still don't like getting my hands dirty like that. Which makes me wonder now why I was so big into making mud pies and trying to sell them for profit. I'm going to have to think on that for a bit. 

Anyway, somehow or another there were always rhubarb plants in the mix of the gardening items. Some people love rhubarb pie. I have never liked celery, and I thought rhubarb looked an awful lot like celery, so I couldn't imagine why in the world a person in their right mind would consider eating a pie made out of celery. Who does that? 

One day, Shauna convinced me we needed to try the rhubarb. We were bored, looking for an adventure, hot and tired, and mainly just trying to get out of having to do any work. Work was for people who didn't have better things to do, and we always had better things to do. Duh. 

We found a rhubarb plant we thought looked exceptionally nice. With a look of "Why not?" at each other, we each ripped off a stalk and started to chew. Talk about bitter! It's making my cheeks tense up and my jaw hurt as I type this out. And yes, I also just shuddered a bit. Oy! 

With our eyes watering and tongues on some kind of acid fire, Shauna suggested some salt might help with the taste. After all, you salted your potatoes and other vegetables when you ate them, right? Sure. Why not? She ran up to the house and returned shortly with the salt shaker. We stared at each other for a bit - kind of like a gun battle in the middle of a ghost town. Who would eat the rhubarb with salt first? 

Finally, we decided to do it together. She salted hers, I salted mine, and then we took another big bite. Still bitter! But it grew on us. Don't ask. I have no idea what possessed us. We just kept eating the stuff. Salting it and eating it. And we downed nearly a whole plant of raw rhubarb with salt on it. 

It had to have been later that night that I didn't feel too well. As a kid, you don't really pay attention to things like what you've eaten that might upset your stomach. You just know you're sick, dangit, and want everyone in the world to stop what they're doing and make you feel better. (Nobody else does that? Just me? Hm.) 

I don't remember throwing up, but I do remember not feeling well at all. I remember having a hard time sleeping. The next day Shauna and I got together but we didn't actually do a whole lot. We just kind of laid around, mostly on the grass, but close enough to a bathroom that we could get there if we needed it. 

At one point Shauna said, "My brother told me that eating raw rhubarb can kill you. Do you think we're going to die?" With a churning stomach and a still-raw tongue I really wanted to answer yes to that question. I'm sure my response instead was a groan. It hurt too much to talk. We learned our lesson though. No more rhubarb, even if you have salt with it. And to this day, I've still never tasted rhubarb pie.