In Duluth, the mighty rhubarb remains a perennial power

How much rhubarb does it take to bake 1,200 pies, 500 crisps and other tart delights? Jeff Van Straaten doesn't need to do the math. He knows the answer: more.

The stay-at-home dad has spent the last two weeks traipsing through Duluth backyards plucking hundreds upon hundreds of rhubarb stalks preparing for the city's rhubarb festival on Saturday, where more than 1,000 rhubarb pies will be sold to benefit a local charity.

After six years of supplying the festival, Van Straaten's become pretty adept at stalking rheum rhabarbarum.

"Sometimes you twist or you kind of pry, give it a little, pop, sometimes they just fall right out," he said during a day that had him harvesting the century-old rhubarb patch at historic Glensheen Mansion with his neighbor Harry Wirz, and then driving to the monastery at the College of St. Scholastica, where the sisters promised him prime pickings.

Van Straaten often finds that rhubarb brings out a lot of stories and old memories. He keeps a spreadsheet with the names and addresses of some 80 donors.

Ingrid Lefevre was getting ready to sell her mom's house, the house she grew up in. The yard hid some huge rhubarb plants. "Jurassic size!" Wirz said.

"I love rhubarb. Mom used to make rhubarb juice, then put some sparkling water with it, it was awesome," Lefevre said. "Mom will be happy to know it's going to you guys for this rhubarb festival."

At the end of the day the back of Van Straaten's truck is stuffed with boxes of the green and red stalks. The festival estimates it will use over a ton of rhubarb.

It all goes to Char Juntunen, who describes herself as "kind of the food coordinator for the entire rhubarb festival." She oversees a kitchen full of volunteers at First Lutheran Church in Duluth, washing and chopping rhubarb, making jam, baking pie crusts.

"I just had those little grandchildren in here with a stalk of rhubarb sticking it in sugar and they had not done that before," she said. "That's the way I grew up on rhubarb, we'd run around with a cup of sugar and a stalk of rhubarb and eat it."

Juntunen, 71, a self-described "church basement lady," was one of the original founders of the festival along with Duluth cookbook author Bea Ojakangas. Juntunen coordinates the pie baking and other cooking of 30 area churches. The late St. Louis County Commissioner Steve O'Neil came up with the idea as a fundraiser for CHUM, a group that serves homeless and poor people.

"When Steve O'Neil started this, he talked about the fact that here's a product that's abundant, it's free, let's make good use of it to help the poor," she said.

But, rhubarb??

"Well rhubarb has issues," she conceded. "It's sour and the leaves are poisonous, you know."

Yes, but that hasn't stopped the fun. There are about 15 rhubarb festivals scattered across the northern U.S. Lanesboro, Minn., also hosts an annual rhubarb festival the first Saturday in June.

Duluth's festival has grown every year, said coordinator Mary Schmitz. Last year CHUM raised $66,000.

"It's kind of funny people just love it," she said. "It's been really fun because I do think you know people really in this area really know how to use what is in their yard and their woods."

But, despite rhubarb's tendency to grow like a weed, or perhaps because of it, it's not hard to find people around Duluth who are not fond of the plant.

"It's just like an invasive weed. I don't particularly care for the taste. You're not going to use my name are you?" asked Adam H. He let Van Straaten and Wirz harvest his patch. He wanted it out. He's also a business owner in Duluth who worried publicly scorning rhubarb could hurt business.

"I don't want to make enemies," he said.

This weekend in Duluth though it's all about the love for that ubiquitous backyard plant. Rhubarb snow cones are new on the menu this year, along with old favorites rhubarb brats, rhubarb relish, rhubarb burritos and rhubarb salsa.

After the festival, Juntunen said she'll finally get to rest after working for two months preparing for the festival. She may even sample a bottle of rhubarb wine she bought recently in South Dakota.

But she won't relax too long. In a few months she'll start preparing for First Lutheran's annual Christmas lutefisk feast, where she'll help feed 1,300 people.