Celebrating celery

Let's take a moment to appreciate the once-glamorous veg that's nowadays taken for granted, even maligned.

Happy Friday, crunchy cook!

Once upon a time, celery was a luxury item, more expensive than caviar. Its leaves were part of the garlands in Tutankhamun’s tomb. In the 19th century, people displayed celery in vases. Today, it doesn’t even merit an emoji.

Tuna salad, egg salad, bean salad, potato salad — how insipid would these be without Apium graviolens? (I’ll bet you’ve never stopped to ask celery’s Latin name.) Wherefore shrimp salad? Why bother with chicken salad? What is a crudité plate or relish plate without the slender, striated stalks? Where would giardiniera be without celery? In a celery-free pickle, that’s where.

Mirepoix, soffrito, holy trinity — the foundation of French, Italian and Creole cuisines respectively — all depend on celery, for its herbal minerality, the sense of order it brings to a dish. Plus, it’s super-healthy — anti-oxidant, fiber-filled, vitamin-happy. Ashkenazi-style chicken soup without celery? No, I don’t vant it. If there weren’t celery in Palermo-style caponata, I wouldn’t even consider eating it.

Recently, I almost ran out of celery.

Then I stalked up.

Celery may be basic, but it’s essential, so fresh and pure, so good. So worth featuring!

So, how to make the most of celery? Start by reaching for it more often — you won’t be sorry. Slice it up and add it to your green salads, the simplest ones or the fancy numbers with chicken or shrimp. Organize a bean salad around sliced celery, using a couple kinds of canned beans. You don’t need much else — just some fresh herbs and something oniony (scallions, red onion, shallots). Dress and go. Or stir fry celery with some dried shiitakes you have stashed away when you hardly have anything else. Just another reason to always have celery!

Simmer pieces of celery in chicken broth or veg broth till it’s very tender, then blitz it all. Add a swirl of crème fraîche if you have it, but don’t if you don’t — cream of celery soup.

Make this Mushroom, Shaved Celery and Parmigiano-Reggiano Salad from Jody Williams’ Buvette. [Find the recipe in this post.]

Grate some celery and use it to make an uplifting guacamole, like the one served at Josef Centeno’s Bar Amá in L.A.

Make Red Pepper-Harissa Dip, and dunk stalks of celery in it.

Feeling flush? Make a Celery, Endive and Crab Salad.

Or make a Tuna and Cannelini Bean Salad — and add some extra celery.

When Thanksgiving rolls around, celery will remind you of its wonderfulness: You’ll pack your stuffing with it.

And then, when the going gets chilly and the chilly get simmering, make braised celery and celery root purée.

Yours in celery,

Leslie