One of the key questions I had about The First Four Years had nothing to do with the plot, the relationships, or Laura.
It had to do with pie plant.
You may remember the scene: Laura was cooking for the threshers, the first dinner in her very own little house, and was running through the menu: “There was pie plant in the garden; she must make a couple of pies.”
Later, when the homesteaders at the meal started their dessert, one takes a bite of the pie, then lifts the top crust and coats it with sugar. He appreciated it when the cook let him sweeten his own pie, he told the new wife.
Pie plant was so sour, Laura thought, that the first bite must have been horrible.
I puzzled over this for years, until I finally asked my grandmother. “Have you ever heard of pie plant?”
“Pie plant,” she repeated, and thought about it for a minute. “Do you think she means rhubarb?”
Of course! Rhubarb is a sour plant best known for its use in pie and cake. When I was small, I’d grab a whole stalk out of the patch in the back yard, and peel and suck it for the sourness. Sometimes, Grandma would give us a small bowl of sugar to dip it in as we licked it.
Years later, mystery nearly solved (it was logical, but was it true?), I went to Old Cowtown in Wichita, Kansas, a living history village in the heart of the city. Near the train depot, a small shanty with a large heritage garden stands. In the garden, herbs and heirloom vegetables of all sorts beckon visitors closer, to see these living legacies of another time.
In one corner of the garden, I spied a large plant, clearly labeled “Pie Plant.”
It looked like a slim, pale version of rhubarb. Smaller than the large plants of my memory, pie plant had thinner, green stalks. But the keeper of the garden assured me that it was, indeed, sour–and that it was a staple in homesteader gardens because it was a ready source of vitamin C, preventing scurvy on the plains.
Huh.
As I savored a piece of rhubarb cake for breakfast this morning–my mother stocked me with stalks from her thriving patch last weekend–I thought of the great benefits of the humble plant. And I remembered Grandma’s garden.
Rhubarb Cake
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cream half a cup of shortening with 1 1/2 cups sugar.
Add one cup buttermilk (or sour milk), one egg, one teaspoon of vanilla, 1 teaspoon of soda, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and two cups of flour. Mix well. Fold in two cups of diced rhubarb.
Spread in greased 9 by 13 pan. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup of cinnamon-sugar (made with 1/4 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon). Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until knife in the center of the cake comes out clean.