I LOVE rhubarb and custard. Not the funny, wonky cartoon or those chewy pink and yellow sweets, but real rhubarb with proper homemade custard.

Rhubarb is a bit like Marmite. You either adore or abhor it.

I’ve liked rhubarb since I was a kid. Our next door neighbour at home in Jarrow grew it and we used to get loads passed our way over the garden fence.

Mum found lots of different ways to serve it up, from stewed to crumbles, trifles, on top of breakfast cereal and jam.

But my favourite way to eat the tender shoots of new season rhubarb was raw dipped in sugar.

It is years since I’ve eaten it like that, mind, but I’ve got my name down for an allotment at the moment and if I ever manage to claw my way up to the top of the waiting list, rhubarb will be one of the things I will be growing.

Then I can hopefully introduce my two little girls to not just the joys of growing your own food but the pleasure of eating raw rhubarb with its jaw-clenching sourness offset by the sweetness of refined sugar or honey.

I’ve just moved into a new house and I’ve got plans to grow a few edible plants in the back garden.

Nothing too adventurous as it’s not a big space, but I want to have a full range of fresh herbs in a couple of raised beds and maybe some carrots and potatoes in tubs.

I have thought about introducing rhubarb so I can easily pop out and cut a few stalks, but it can reach a mega-size.

I can remember the neighbour’s in Jarrow had leaves as big as elephant’s ears!

It is rhubarb time now, when the first home-grown stalks start appearing in the shops. We’re at that stage in the year when there isn’t a lot of UK-produced fresh fruit and veg around.

It’s called the hungry gap as there is so little available. Winter is nearly over and spring just around the corner, but annoyingly there is little to show for it in the garden.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons I like rhubarb so much. It’s a rare splash of colour amid the drabness of winter. It’s a shame most people don’t know what to do with it or that their opinion of it has been coloured by the horrible stringy, gloopy stewed mess served up at school. Lacking inspiration, they too resort to just stewing it down or putting it in a crumble, but there is so much more to rhubarb than that.

Rhubarb is one of those rare plants that crosses the boundary between being a fruit and a vegetable.

It is actually a vegetable (except in America where confusingly it is classified as a fruit), but everyone here in the UK treats it as a fruit.

It’s not a native plant and was probably introduced to Europe from Siberia of all places in the early 17th century and is related to sorrel.

It’s forced rhubarb – which is grown in the dark – that is available now.

Forcing produces long, thin Barbie-pink stems that in my view also happen to be more tender and fizzy than the field-grown variety that comes into its own around April.

As well as making a range of delicious and dead simple puddings, rhubarb’s sharpness works really well with meat and savoury dishes too.

It makes fab chutney and is fantastic served alongside fatty meats such as pork, lamb and duck as we do here at Food Social, and even oily fish such as mackerel.

Rhubarb’s natural bite acts as a perfect foil.

It can be turned into cakes and muffins, ice cream, tarts, syllabubs, jellies, sauces, wine and even added to salads with another current in-season fruit, blood oranges. The list is endless.

Rhubarb quickly cooks down if you boil or simmer it, though, so if you want it to keep its shape (useful if you are serving it as a side dish to meat), then it’s best to cut the stems into elongated chunks, sprinkle them with sugar and bake them in a moderate oven with a little water for about 20-30 minutes.

I can’t think of many vegetables – even potatoes – that are as multi-talented in the kitchen.

Remember, rhubarb isn’t just for crumble.

Andrew Wilkinson is head chef at David Kennedy’s Food Social, 16 Stoddart Street, Shieldfield, Newcastle, NE2 1AN. Call 0191 260 5411, or see www.foodsocial.co.uk.

Ingredients:

For the lemon posset:

900ml double cream

220g caster sugar

Juice 3 large lemons

For the rhubarb:

4 sticks rhubarb

200g caster sugar

200ml water

2 strips of orange zest

½ vanilla pod

2 blood oranges, segmented

For the shortbread:

225g unsalted butter, softened

50g icing sugar

200g self-raising sugar

50g corn flour

First make the posset. Put the cream and sugar into a pan and slowly bring to a simmer. Add the lemon juice and whisk.

Bring the mixture back to a simmer and take it off the heat. Once it has cooled, strain it through a fine sieve and pour into individual glasses or ramekins.

Refrigerate.

Next, prepare the rhubarb. If it’s new season it won’t need to be peeled. Cut the sticks into inch-long chunks and place in a container with a lid.

Put the water, sugar, vanilla and orange zest into a pan and bring to a rolling boil for a couple of minutes. Take the pan off the heat and pour the liquid over the rhubarb. The hot liquid will poach the rhubarb. Put the lid back on.

Segment the oranges.

To make the shortbread, sieve the icing sugar into the softened butter, and cream with a wooden spoon. Sieve in the self-raising flour and corn flour and make a pliable dough.

Roll the dough into a sausage shape, wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for one hour.

Cut off one-inch thick rounds, place on a baking sheet and cook at 180C/350F/gas mark 4 for between 12-15 minutes until a pale golden-brown. Leave to cool at room temperature.

To serve, place blood orange segments and chopped rhubarb on top of the set lemon posset and enjoy with the shortbread.