Celery: An Origin Story

Apparently celery is not popular enough to merit many pictures of it by itself. My Imperfect Foods delivery isn’t coming until after this post is done, so this works perfectly! Kelly Sikkema/Getty

I’ve got to tell y’all: as interesting as I find writing those huge “what to do with this item” articles, I needed a break from them. I also realized that I miss doing origin stories! The long articles are basically short seminar papers, and while I’m still writing those (the articles, not the seminar papers), I’ve decided to do them more slowly and with more space between so I’m not torturing myself with flashbacks to grad school with those one-week deadlines on expansive topics!

I really love celery, and although I know a lot about it, I wanted to learn some more. My first memory of celery was as a little kid, because we had been at a restaurant where heavily salted, blanched celery was served like bread in other places. This was some kind of epiphany to me, though it took me years to realize that the water has to be heavily salted for it to be as delicious as possible. From then on, celery has spent more time on my mind than is probably normal.

Now that you’ve read mine with celery, it’s time for celery’s own origin story! I asked in the Facebook group, and was told there and by some IRL friends that pertaining to celery, we want to know more about the seeds, more about how to use celery outside soups (no soup recipes today!), health benefits, and more about how to not have celery be so bitter. All of those things, and more, shall be included today! I’m so excited!!

I just think everyone should see this weird and wonderful video:

What is celery?

First, it really is a vegetable. Let’s start there. Most of the “vegetables” we eat are actually fruits, so this is one of the few that isn’t!

Celery (Apium graveolens var. dulce) is a Mediterranean member of the parsley family, from which parsnips and carrots also hail. Lots of yums going on in that family! There are three main types of cultivars: stem celery (what we think of as celery), celeriac (bulb celery, where you’re growing this for the starchy root), and leaf celery (also called Chinese celery; they have stems that are thin like the innermost stalks of stem celery, except hollow). The only one I’ve grown was leaf celery, and I found the stems extraordinarily bitter, for a domesticated food, no matter what I did to them. The leaves, though, were pure magic.

Originally, celery was really only eaten (unless preserved, and in cases where it was used as a food instead of a medicine) in the winter and early spring. This is important, because it gives significant health benefits in this context strictly from providing fresh foods during parts of the year so few others existed. Over time, that season was extended to cover most of the time from fall to spring. Really, celery is high in an astounding number of vitamins and minerals. But because celery is high in fibre (read as: prebiotics), vitamin K (29%/serving) and has a decent amount of vitamin C (4%; not ideal, but great if you’re in a place where high vitamin C foods aren’t as available), this humble vegetable was super helpful in preventing a number of health conditions such as scurvy and excessive bleeding (including menorrhagia). People with Chrons, IBS, chronic renal disorders/diseases, Celiac, and a large handful of other disorders tend to need increased doses of vitamin K due to those conditions creating challenges in VK absorption. Ditto people who suffer from alcoholism. Alcoholism can cause significant issues pertaining to vitamin K, as we all remember from Suicide Kings!

I considered using the clip where they talk about vitamin K, but the reality is that it’s probably too gory for many readers/viewers. This is also one of my favorite parts of the movie, so there’s that. This video is NSFW if you’re still going to the office (or are sensitive to foul language), because Denis Leary doesn’t open his mouth on screen (I assume he does in his real life) without dropping an awful lot of F-bombs. The clip does not, sadly, have Walken in it, because he’s busy being tied to a posh chair where all the gory bits are happening. That said, this is hands down my favorite Christopher Walken movie, and I am not about to give up an opportunity to plug it no matter how tenuous the ground that opportunity rests upon. Also and mostly unrelatedly? If any of you guys have a copy of the version of The Three Musketeers made-for-TV film that Walken was in, would you mind sending your backup copy to me? I wrote to him years ago because I wanted it for a class I used to teach on that novel (film adaptation course), but I assume his people thought I was too insane to reply to it. I’ve never seen it, but I would’ve put it in the course schedule even if it stank because I love Walken, no matter the role. I’d love to see it if possible!

Wild to Domesticated

Wild celeries do grow indigenously in a number of localities that are not part of the Mediterranean basin, and often enough that they can’t be explained as having gotten there through trade routes. That said, it’s the Mediterranean wild celery that is first cultivated and later domesticated.

No one is entirely sure when exactly this happened, despite myriad archaelogical finds of celery earlier than the point of certainty, but what we do know is that it had been by the Classical period. Lots and lots of written records of it then, for sure! We do not, however, see agricultural improvement of wild celery until around the 17th-century in Italy, France and England. This means that celery as we know it, primarily selected for less bitterness, wasn’t even a thing until about 300-400 years ago.

Early recipes for culinary celery almost always involve blanching it, which reduces bitterness, and typically find celery either braised, used as a seasoning, or tossed with oil as a salad. For people who are bothered by the bitterness of celery stalks, blanching really does leach out a good chunk of it. You also should consider purchasing less green bundles of celery at the store - those paler ones are also less bitter. Interestingly, celery “stalks” are actually called branches or ribs, and the stalk of the celery is the whole bundle!

Anyway, celery goes through the normal process of domestication in Europe, but later in the States we see a bigger uptick of this, primarily with bitterness being the problem being selected against. I’m not entirely sure if the process occurs in the States to decrease the high cost of celery during the early period (really, it was high: common folk would not have been able to afford it). Those of you who don’t care for celery due to the bitterness are not alone! For a long time, culinary use of celery really did get relegated to the leaves and fruits for anything but making stocks and broths!

Oh, also! Although I really do like an astonishing level of bitterness in a variety of foods, if I think that a given celery stalk is too bitter for peanut butter (happens), I go cream cheese instead. You can also use labneh, if you’re making that instead of buying cream cheese these days. Either way, the natural sweetness of cream cheese and similar helps offset and balance the celery issue. I eat a ridiculous amount of celery with stuff in it (mostly peanut butter, because peanut butter!).

It now occurs to me that I must immediately send this video to my friend Kathleen, who never uses all her celery and struggles not to waste it. I hope this video will be helpful to her.

Medicinal Celery

I’m going to try to speed through this part instead of writing the super-long monographs I normally do elsewhere for medicinal plants. Wish me luck! Medicinally speaking, celery is not “just” high in a large number of vitamins and minerals. It also contains a compound called coumarin, which is also present in cinnamon and a bunch of other plants, and which can be used medicinally in a variety of ways. On account of this, some people make it a point to consume 4 stalks of celery per day in order to help lower their blood pressure. Most literature on celery and HBP, and really basically everything, tends to relate to the seeds, though, rather than the stalks. As a head’s up.

NOTE: if you’re on medications for HBP, don’t just stop taking it and start nomming all the celery, please. Have a conversation with your doctor about whether this is an experiment y’all want to do together, and make sure you’re experimenting under supervision. This is going to hold true of basically anything I say about the potential health benefits of celery. Talk to your doctor. I am not a physician, and even if I were, I’m still not your physician.

Although drinking celery juice is a popular thing these days for various medical reasons, studies don’t bear it out. If you like celery juice, you should keep drinking it, but know that the research doesn’t support this particular use for those reasons. That said, there are some studies that indicate that celery extracts may be helpful in arthritis, chronic muscle pain situations, and similar conditions. In some cases, gout gets added here. What science says celery juice is good for is basically the same stuff that just eating the celery is good for, except without the fibre/prebiotics. My personally? I’d just eat the celery so I wouldn’t miss out on the fibre. Some people, however, may suffer physical and/or sensory disorders that make juicing the only way to get fruits and vegetables in their diets. If that’s you? Juice away!!

Some people believe that celery can help cure or mitigate insomnia (and can be helpful with anxiety), and while that may be true, I’m pretty sure it’s the fullness I experience after loading my celery down with peanut butter that sends me off to la-la land (or maybe it is the celery…). YMMV, of course, but there is evidence that one shouldn’t consume crazy amounts of celery for 2 weeks before a surgery, due to its effects on the nervous system Some research does demonstrate both pain relief and reduced length and severity of menstrual cycles, so load up if that’s the thing that kills you, and celery extract (diluted in gels) can be used as a mosquito repellent for shorter durations (4.5 hours with similar efficacy to DEET). Despite some claims that celery can abolish E. coli infections in the urinary tract, there is also the recommendation against medicinal quantities of celery in cases where renal conditions exist.

Within TCM and Ayurveda medical structures, seeds are also used (as well as everything above) for viral infections like flu and colds, and for Candida issues like vaginal candidiasis.

Medicinal quantities of celery, per the vast majority of medicinal herbs, is contraindicated with pregnancy. It seriously may cause a miscarriage by causing uterine bleeding and contractions. It’s also contraindicated for people taking Tylenol, levothyroxine, lithium, amitripyline, haloperidol, Zofan, propanolol, theophylline, verapamil, anything else that is altered by cytochrome P450 1A2 (CYP1A2) substrates, medications designed to lower blood pressure, medications that can cause photosenitivity (as medicinal quantities of celery can also do), anticoagulants, antiplatelet drugs, sleep medications, and aminopyrine. So rather a lot of things celery in these medicinal doses can adversely affect.

I hadn’t seen this ad, but it came with the caption: “Broadside for Paine’s celery compound in 1883. Cocaine was one of the ingredients, and the compound was claimed to cure a wide range of ills, from scrofula to ‘female weakness.’ (David Karp)”

The Nuts and Bolts of Celery

When we want to know what to do with celery, we first need to decide which part. There’s the root (celeriac), the ribs, leaves, and seeds. The seeds are really fruits, albeit stupidly tiny ones. Let’s go through them all with a mind toward what we’re doing with them, rather than focusing on what they’re like.

Getting to the Root of the Matter

Celeriac is a pretty cool vegetable. I usually see this sold without the ribs, but sometimes also with. When that happens, I separate the bunch from the root - both will last longer if you do! Celeriac has an earthy, “rooty” sort of flavor, I think more similar to turnip than potato, but laced with hints of celery. It’s much sweeter when cooked, though I like it both cooked and raw. It’s also really one of the few roots out there that can span a lot of genres of food and be used in a large number of ways.

First, there are a number of sites that have compilations of recipes with enough that look delicious in them for me to have y’all poke through that jazz yourselves, rather than picking and choosing which parts to show you.

For raw applications, Julia Child did a beautiful remoulade, or how about this celeriac and arugula salad that I need to eat ASAP? My little heart is already warmed by the existence of this grapefruit and celeriac salad, too, even before we topped it off with yummy capers! There’s also coleslaw, for those of you into that!

You may also make fries from it, smash it, roast, do a gratin, soup, roast whole, mash, and purée. Y’all also should make it a point to try this Turkish side dish! Sky’s the limit on what you can do with this furry little root!

Celeriac. It’s a weird looking root. Yuval Zukerman/Getty

The Celery Stalks at Midnight

Although there are a whole lot of tasty-looking compilations of what to do with the ribs, my personal favorites are stir-frying, roasting, pickling, and braising. Other than, of course, the heavily salted and blanched appetizer I mention above and the celery with peanut butter! You may also sautée, salad of course, and stuff them not-with-peanut-butter!

Not gonna lie here, guys: mostly right now I want you to read this book:

This is a great book, per the entire series, if you don’t know it!

Leaf Your Options Open!

Celery leaves really are great. They can be used in place of the ribs in soups, and there are of course the standard complement of sites telling you how not to waste these precious bits. Leaves for me are a seasoning, excellent for risotto (something you also can do with stems, but for the linked recipe replace the kale/dandelion with celery leaves!), to munch on while I’m prepping whatever I’m cooking, braise, pesto, and devilled eggs!

Seed You Later!

We’re down to the seeds! Most common way I see seeds used is in celery salt and on Chicago-style hotdogs. In my house, I use this a lot in tuna salad, matzo brei, egg salad, devilled eggs, and basically anywhere I want some celery flavor without the cutting.

Beyond those ideas, you may also make celery seed bread, fruit salad, different salad dressings, slaw, spice blends, apple rye turnovers, ham and cheese straws, roast chicken, celery seed chicken casserole, lamb, and so much more!

Lastly, I leave you with this seed bread! This video is kind of weird, but the recipe looks solid! Happy celery’ing!