Preheat oven to 400 F.
Summers in Minnesota are hot, a humid kind of hot. This was no less true in the far north country where I was raised, less than an hour from the Canadian border. Back then, in the 70s — an era hindered by inflation and high energy costs — our one-story, ranch-style home did not have air-conditioning. In the peak summer months, my mom’s well-honed baking skills often took a temporary hiatus — but not until after we’d gathered up the rhubarb.
Harvest rhubarb by pulling gently on the stalks to loosen them from the ground. Do not cut the rhubarb or it will wound the plant and introduce risk of infection.
Also known as the “pie plant,” rhubarb is technically a vegetable, although the US Customs Court of Buffalo declared it a fruit in 1947 for tariff reasons. Benjamin Franklin is said to have sent the first rhubarb seeds to the United States from London in 1770, but it didn’t become popular in seed catalogs here until the 1820s1. It flourished in the spring, just as the apples began to rot. Perfect for spring pies! By the time my great-grandparents immigrated to northern Minnesota from Norway in the 1880s, rhubarb plants could be found growing on, and transplanted from, neighboring farms.
Rhubarbs stalks are similar to celery and its texture, almost identical. It is a perennial plant that grows low to the ground. Its stalks can be light green to ruby red in color. The stalks are capped by broad dark green leaves, poisonous to eat. While the stalks may be eaten raw, they are extremely tart on their own.
Sometimes Lisa, my childhood friend and I, would sit on her back step eating raw rhubarb stalks, our lips puckering. At my house, my mom cooked the rhubarb with sugar to counterbalance the sourness. Often, she’d make pie.
Rhubarb grew in abundance along the edge of our backyard. Mom would freeze half the harvest; the remainder of the fresh rhubarb was stored in the fridge until it could be baked into a half dozen rhubarb custard pies for the three June birthdays in our family. Some people bake straight rhubarb pie, others, strawberry rhubarb pie. My mom is the only one I ever knew who made a from-scratch rhubarb custard pie.
For the custard, mix:
3 eggs
3 T. milk
2 c. sugar
¼ c. flour
¾ t. nutmeg
Although her only daughter, I didn’t spend much time with my mother in the kitchen. I’m not exactly sure why. Perhaps I showed little interest. Perhaps, after teaching fourth graders all day, my mom desired alone time while preparing the well-balanced meals she served her family of six each night. All four food groups were represented (pre-food-pyramid-Gen Xers will understand) and dinner was accompanied by dessert, if only from-scratch chocolate pudding.
Add 4 c. chopped rhubarb to the custard mixture
My July birthday arrived after the rhubarb harvest. But back then I preferred Mom’s carrot cake, baked in round pans. The circular cake, cut in half and inverted — the short sides connected with homemade cream cheese frosting created a butterfly shape. Mom decorated it with gum drop spots and string licorice antennae. When too hot even to bake, I’d get a store-bought cake. Either way, I suspect my young birthday guests preferred cake to pie baked from a tart, stringy vegetable that grows on stalks capped by deadly leaves.
Press a crust (homemade or store bought) into the bottom of a generous round tin. Pour rhubarb mixture over the bottom crust
Mom baked other kinds of pie, like apple in the fall, and pumpkin (also a vegetable) at Thanksgiving. While her rhubarb custard was the pie my brothers liked best, I would only ever take a small piece. At our June family birthday celebrations, I’d navigate tentatively around the cooked rhubarb in the same way I skirted the unwelcomed bits of celery in Mom’s beef stew. The pie was simply a means to receiving a dollop of vanilla ice cream on my plate.
Dot with five pats of butter, add top crust, and make at least six slits on top of the crust
After my brother, Scott, and his wife moved to Minnesota — following a long stint out west — my Californian sister-in-law learned to make rhubarb custard pie for Scott, who had one of the June birthdays. From my sister-in-law, I learned rhubarb doesn’t grow in Southern California, or any other place lacking a cool spring. She’d never heard of the pie plant back when my brother started telling her about Mom’s rhubarb custard pies. Another brother, Chris, also learned how to make the pie during his summers home from college. He favors fresh stalks — though his November birthday pies are made with frozen rhubarb.
Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 55-60 minutes
Now that my mom’s health is declining, I find myself wishing I’d spent more time baking alongside her; even more, I wish I’d grown an appreciation for her rhubarb custard pies sooner. How is it that I’d completely missed the magical way the sour compliments the sweet, and how the nutmeg, combined with the eggs, hovers in a heavenly mélange on one’s tongue. Appreciation aside, I’ve yet to attempt baking rhubarb pie.
Remove from oven and cool for one hour
Recently, I found Mom’s rhubarb custard pie recipe tucked inside an old journal of mine but written in my sister-in-law’s neat cursive. The tell-tale broad green leaves and reddish sprouts of rhubarb will soon be pushing up through the rich soil in my side yard where the prior owner of my house planted a glorious patch of rhubarb.
Enjoy
This June, I plan on baking a rhubarb custard pie for my mom’s 86th birthday. I’ll use store-bought crust, so it won’t be as good as Mom’s. But it will suffice, I’m sure. I can already see us sitting at my table together, marveling over our huge slices. Mom will smile as she brings her fork to her mouth. My brain will imprint the moment, cataloging the taste of nutmeg over rhubarb over sugar over eggs. I’ll try to carry this taste of nostalgia forward into the spring when the rhubarb pushes up through the ground and I pull out the recipe card to bake a pie in remembrance of a mother whose rhubarb custard pies were alchemized love.
1. Nina Mukerjee Furstenau, The Pocket Rhubarb Cookbook (Belt Publishing, 2025), 15-16.
Image by Emily O on flickr.com, licensed under CC 2.0.
“The Pie Plant” is part of our upcoming anthology, A Table to Hold the World, Celebrating the Immigrant Roots of American Cuisine. This highly anticipated book from Zest! editor Deborah Norkin celebrates food transplanted into our American soil from every corner of the globe. Releasing later this summer, A Table to Hold the World will be available soon to pre-order.
- The Pie Plant - July 17, 2026