Rhubarb isn't for everybody.

This truth was impressed upon me as a child, when my mother brought home some fresh rhubarb. She called it pieplant, and made it into a pie. I made for my bedroom. I'd rather do my homework than eat rhubarb pie. I thought it tasted like medicine.

No wonder. One variety of the plant—native to China—was a medicine. Some five millenia ago, the Chinese were using the dried, powdered root as an effective laxative. Over the centuries, they considered this plant one of their most important medicines, and used it to treat everything from the plague to the stomach-ache. When Marco Polo returned from China in the late 13th century, he brought back reports of this miracle plant. But the dried root wasn't easy to transport and the plant itself didn't thrive in Europe. By the time of Henry VIII, Chinese rhubarb—when you could get it—was twice as expensive as opium, four times more costly than saffron, and almost worth its weight in gold.

But the price of rhubarb was about to take a dive. In the 1630's, Sir Matthew Lister brought a Siberian variety to England. While this rhubarb wasn't as potent as the Chinese plant, at least it would grow. For a while, it was cultivated for the root, which was still being used as a laxative. But in 1810, a gardener named Joseph Myatt peddled five bunches of rhubarb stalks at the market in Deptford. Sales were slow at first, but soon this vegetable was being widely eaten as a substitute for fruit. In a cold climate where fresh fruits were impossible to obtain in winter, its tart, fresh taste must have been a treat. And since it is high in vitamin C, it was a healthy addition to the dinner table. The leaves weren't edible—they contain oxalic acid that can cause the tongue to swell and make breathing difficult. But the stalks were used, with plenty of sugar, to make pies, jams, sauces, and even wine.

China is a world away, and five millenia a long time, but rhubard endures.

Think about that, the next time you're tempted to turn down a piece of rhubarb pie.