“Oh, how the mighty have fallen.” Words uttered by King David regarding King Saul millennia ago, but applicable to so much more.
Humans are fickle, and succumbing to latest trends is nothing new. We chase after the latest and greatest status symbols of wealth and popularity. What was once the centerpiece of a celebration, the crown of a victor, and a symbol of wealth has been discarded to the chopping block or much worse, the bottom of the refrigerator vegetable drawer. Let’s examine how the queen of the Victorian dinner table was reduced to a stock pot ingredient.
I’ve been cooking since I could reach the stove, and like most cooks, I have a set menu I follow for holiday meals. While shopping for ingredients to make the dressing for Thanksgiving, I picked up a bunch of celery. Nothing out of the ordinary, many people use it as an ingredient, but I probably use more celery during the holiday season than any other time of year. Celery is a common ingredient in our ‘Cajun Trinity’ and the French mirepoix, but how did it end up on our cutting boards?
Celery, Apium graveolens var. dulce, is a member of the Apiaceae (Umbelliferae) or carrot/parsley family. The English word celery comes from the French word celeri and Italian word seleri, which are both derived from the Greek word selinon. It is believed to have originated in the Mediterranean region around Greece and Italy.
Wild celery is much different from modern garden celery. Native to temperate and Mediterranean areas, wild celery grows as a biennial herb in moist regions with low elevations. Due to its strong, bitter flavor and thin stalks, only the seeds were used as a spice in cooking. The plant though was so valued that the Corinthians awarded winners of the Isthmian games with crowns of celery like the crowns of laurel awarded to winners of the first Olympic games. This was because wild celery was considered a rare and prized plant. It even appeared to be used as a symbol on ancient coins.
Fast forward to Victorian Europe, and we see advancements in plant breeding during the 17th and 18th centuries had transformed celery into a culinary ingredient with reduced pungency and crisp stalks. However, it was still a difficult crop to grow and only found on the dinner table of the affluent. As a result, it was served as a standalone dish and displayed as a centerpiece by the upper-class.
Around the time of the Civil War, introductions of new varieties and improved growing and transportation methods made celery available to the middle-class. By the 1880s celery had become so common in restaurants, it was no longer a status symbol of the elite, but a mere ingredient for the cutting board.
Commercial celery production has made celery available year-round. No longer a winter only vegetable, celery is readily available in the grocery store. While it may not be a common garden vegetable in Louisiana, we can grow celery in the fall/winter garden. While not as easy to grow as its carrot relative, celery does best when direct seeded in October. If you start seeds indoors in December, you can set celery transplants to the garden in January and February.
Space transplants every 6 to 12 inches. Celery needs full sun and consistent soil moisture, but not saturated soil. Harvest either individual stalks or the whole bunch. It takes around 100 days to reach maturity. However, I wouldn’t expect the same long, robust stalks found on the grocery store shelves.
While celery is no longer displayed as the centerpiece of a fancy dinner table, it is still a staple for the cutting board. Try growing some this winter if you are looking for something different to add to your garden.
