Rhubarb, rhubarb

If you have already read the Guardian online this morning, you will know that I have straightforwardly swiped one of their titles, that of their 'The Northerner' section, a round up of the northern newspapers. It does seem that the North of England has more interesting and unusual news than the south. This item refers to a celebration of yes, you've guessed it, rhubarb. I quote,

"This week, the Wakefield Express reveals, the district is hosting a seven-day long celebration of rhubarb. The festival, which features candle-lit tours of rhubarb sheds, is attracting visitors from around the world and will run until the end of the week. According to the Express, rhubarb has played a significant role in the local economy for more than 150 years, not least because Wakefield is "situated in the mysterious rhubarb triangle of West Yorkshire, which includes Leeds and Morley." Curious? So was the Northerner. Wakefield Council press officer had one answer: "It is strange, kind of mysterious, although I'm not quite sure where the mystery is in it." Mysterious."

Now rhubarb is one of my dislikes. Since being in Canada I am begining to suspect that I have rather too many dislikes, other people don't seem to, or rather they don't seem to take them so seriously. For example, Kevin doesn't like ginger, but he will eat it as a flavour in things, he would just avoid the nice big crystallised chunky bits you can get at Christmas. For me, rhubarb, and my other fruity dislike, pineapple, are things to be avoided. There would always be a rhubarb flavoured yoghurt in the selection I used to buy and when Austen would come home from university, he would have a fridge full of them to eat.

In spite of being British, I don't like tea. This is not so much of a cultural disadvantage in the soft south of England where there is a tendancy more towards coffee, but get as far as the Midlands and it can be a problem. Not a problem here in Canada at all, in fact in the summer when I was obliged to buy some tea bags for Ben, I was stumped, I had to re-learn tea-language, squirrel about and eventually find. Tea is not just tea it seems.

Marzipan, in fact almondy flavoured things make me go eeuw. Oddly, I can eat actual almonds, they don't seem to taste of almond somehow, but an almondy smell and taste puts me right off. I can at least make up an excuse for this one, granted not a very convincing excuse.
When the IRA were heavily into letter bombs in the 70s, I was working for the Department of Employment and we were told to discard any post that smelt of almonds,clearly some explosive smelt this way, also I believe cyanide is supposed to taste of almonds. Don't want to test that one out. OK, I always hated marzipan so that doesn't really work. Christmas cakes always seemed to have a thick layer of marzipan under the icing, which I would have to dissect out and give to my sister. Likewise there was always a marzipan flavoured one in a box of chocolates which was prized by others and avoided at all costs by moi. German chocs seemed to consist largely of marzipan. And yet none of these things seem to be so any more, I am no longer engaged in a continual avoidance war, perhaps the rest of the world who aren't me have eaten it all and there always was a finite supply.

Pineapple, rhubarb, marzipan, tea, the things that I dislike which define me. What a strange way of thinking. I'm quite fascinated by the idea of a mysterious rhubarb triangle though. Hmmmm..food for thought.