Joyce,
If you use rhubarb as medication, that's different from using it as food, and, as you are acutely aware, chemo is no picnic either.
As far as "good" rhubarb, my mother was a "world class" cook, and could have given lessons to Julia Childs, especially regarding gravy and pie crusts. We grew rhubarb for all of my youth and had it as pie, sauce, preserves, and as myriad other preparations, all of which left me yearning for strawberries instead. Regarding strawberries: If you have to mix them with rhubarb to make the rhubarb palatable, screw the rhubarb and eat the strawberries. (Kind of like the old carp, pine board recipe.)
As with everything else, there is no accounting for taste, but my taster (regarded as as gourmet by many) avoids rhubarb in any and all forms. I much prefer red currant jelly instead (try to find that at your grocery store).
But then, the more folks who eat rhubarb, the more strawberries and currants for me!
Re:gooseberries: They taste exactly like rhubarb. My dad loved them and grew them in Missouri (his native state) during the first ten years of his retirement but could not grow them (thankfully) in North Carolina as they are verboten here due to being secondary host to pine blister rust. I remember his Welsh Terrier pulling gooseberies off the vines in Poplar Bluff, Mo. and raising her lips like she was snarling while chewing the sour little orbs.
If you like rhubarb and gooseberies, go for it, I will stick to strawberries, escargot and soft shell crabs.
