November 26, 2024 • 25 mins
Celery stalks, leaves, roots, and seeds are part of countless cuisines today, but the ribs were once considered such a fancy treat that folks displayed them in vases. In this classic episode, Anney and Lauren dig into the history and science of celery.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annis and.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we have a classic episode
for you about Celery.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, any particular reason this was on your mind, Lauren.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, you know, I was, you know, filing through our
backlog and Celery is, you know, with with the holidays
upon us. Celery is an ingredient in a lot of
those kind of classic holiday dishes. And furthermore, it has
such an interesting history of being incredibly fancy, which is
(00:45):
low key why it's incorporated in some of these fancy
holiday dishes like holiday feast dishes. And also it is delightful.
It's just or I mean, I think it's delightful. Y'all
are allowed to think whatever you want. But the your
fanciness that Celery achieved in its history, it's great.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
It is one of my favorite things we talked about
in this episode was Celery dishes. Yeah, the vases and
the dishes. Yeah, oh yes, And I do I love
that Celery kind of occupy is the space of historically
being fancy. Let's display it, let's put it in this
(01:28):
dish to now where it is still involved in a
lot of our holiday dishes, but it's also sort of
like like we see it as something we don't want
to eat too much, especially.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
As kids, Like yeah, like, oh that's healthy and kind
of gross. Yeah, I personally I like the flavor of celery,
but some people really do not.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Like all right, Yeah, sure, I like it, and I
especially I feel like I've been going on and on
about this in our recent episodes, but I love soups
and I love it. It absorbs flavor really well. Yeah. Yeah,
soups adds a nice little touch. Yeah, yeah, a little crunch.
I did like it with peanut butter as a kid.
(02:16):
But yeah, people have strong opinions about celery, which we love.
We love strong pinions absolutely.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Oh yeah, but yeah, I suppose that without further ado,
we should let former Annie and Lauren take it away.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Hello, I'm welcome to food Stuff. I'm Annie Rees.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And I'm Lauren vocal Bomb, and today we're talking about celery.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Everyone clicks away, Nope, no stick around. It's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Is it's surprisingly fascinating. The history is great.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, yeh. That's one of the reasons we're talking about
it because, as you may know, we recently went to Ashville,
North Carolina. We went to the Biltmore House and I
can't personally remember those, but people told us afterwards that
there were fancy Celery dishes in the Biltmore House.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, and we needed to know more.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I got too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Also, yeah, I can't find any records of these fancy
Celery dishes online, any photos or anything like that. But
for the first guests that the Biltmore entertained in eighteen
ninety five over Christmas, celery was high on the list
of supplies to have on hand, along with a honey,
black walnuts, chestnuts, eggs, fish, and lobsters.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
It's an interesting assortment of things. Yeah, huh, all right,
well let's ask the question, then, shall.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
We yees start as we usually do? Celery? What is it?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
The healthy part of your order of wings, a vehicle
for peanut butter in the case of ants on a log?
Oh sure, something stepped inside your Thanksgiving turkey, A garnish
for a bloody mary in, your favorite old bass seasoning,
one of the Holy Trinity, and the French mirepoist.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
All of those things.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yes, also super producer Dylan's.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Second least favorite food I get behind cucumber.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
We'll have to find out the third and that will
be coming.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah. Celery is the thing that I use a lot.
Is I've said before in the show I can't have
I shouldn't eat like onion or bell pepper. So a
lot of the time when I start, if I'm cooking
a dish, my base layer of vegetation is chopped celery
and carrot to give everything a little bit of a flavor.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah. Yeah, I like celery. I feel like it's a
good absorber.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, and it adds water. It's nice and flavorful in
a way that I personally like. It's okay to not
I know many people who dislike celery.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, I would have to say most people I know
are not fans.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I don't like eating it raw, but I think it anyway.
Celery is an aromatic green or green yellow vegetable in
the species Apium grevail lends. Different varietals of celery have
been developed for three distinct culinary parts, dulce for the
firm stalks that we often encounter here in the United States,
(05:24):
secle linum for the more tender stalks, and leaves. Primarily
for the leaves, this is also called smallidge or confusingly
wild celery. Although it's not truly wild, but it is
the closest to the original wild celeries, and to make
things even easier, not true. Truly wild celeries are also
sometimes called smallidge. Yeah thanks humans.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah that confused to me for a good minute. It's okay.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
The third variety is Rapacium, grown for the white root
and is also called celariac, though bariac isn't really a root,
it's actually a bulbous stem that grows half in and
half out of the ground.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
A lot of clarity here, yeah, yep.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
The stalks are prized for their crunch and their fiber,
the leaves for their tenderness, and the celariac for its
starchy creaminess. Another culinary part of the celery plant, though,
is its seeds, commonly ground and used as a spice
or as the celery part of celery salt.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Ah yeah, yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And all of these parts have a fresh, herbal, green, savory,
nutty sweet sort of flavor. All can be eaten fresh
and raw, but generally maybe aside from the seeds become
kind of like melty soft when they're cooked, The stalks
and leaves can disappear into almost nothing, and the root
scare quotes root behaves a little bit like like a
(06:52):
parsnipper carrot.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Also want to include this quote from the New World Encyclopedia.
Celiac is not as popular as other root vegetables, especially
in the Western Hemisphere, very possibly because of its garish
appearance before cleaning. It has been described as a vegetable octopus.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
What if you've never seen one? That the true roots
of this root grow down off of the bottom half
of the bulb and an, yeah, it looks a little
bit squidty. Really yeah, Oh that's so cool, kind of
kind of cthulhuy. Yeah, there's a fun there, and I'm
going to come up with it later. Excellent.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
The family that celery belongs to, belafers is chalk full
of poisonous plants, including water hemlock, which is what killed Socrates.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
It's also the family that gives us parsley, human parsnip,
and coriander.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
So net positive net positive. Celery or Celery's wild ancestors anyway,
is native to the Mediterranean, but nowadays it's grown in
North America and temperate Europe. Small adge is grown in
the Mediterranean and Asia, and you can find wild types
(08:09):
all over from Algeria to New Zealand to India and
in the US, California is the biggest producer. And I
read a lot about seasonality when it comes to celery.
It's best in the US in November to December. Yeah,
and that's one of the reasons it probably shows up
in a lot of holiday dishes and soups around here.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, it's a cool weather crap for sure.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yeah, but this means that the rest of the year,
a lot of us are probably eating bad celery.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Either bad celery like subpar clery or celery that has
been shipped so far.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Right. Yeah, that came up whole lot when I was
researching this, and it's kind of made me want to.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Like rethink my celery consumption.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, yeah, kind of. Yeah. Nutrition wise, it's pretty healthy
six calories per stock, but that's before you load it
up with ranch or peanut butter or what have you.
It's got a good amount of fiber and vitamin C.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Also vitamin's kne plus A, folate, and potassium. Celariac adds
a bit of protein and vitamin B six to the mix.
Celery seed is probably not something you're going to eat
enough of to really make a difference either way, But
as you would expect from a seed, it's got some
fat and some protein, plus calcium and iron.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
A small subset of people are allergic to celery and
it can provoke as severe a reaction as peanuts.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I haven't heard of this. Apparently it's big and the
allergy is most common in Central Europe.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Also, celery stalks, leaves, seeds, and root have all been
investigated intensely for possible medicinal uses because well, A, there's
historical context, but b it contains just a lot of
compounds that have been earmarked as potentially beneficial, like lots
of antioxidants which can prevent oxidative damage to your cells,
(09:53):
which can help prevent stuff like cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
Then there's apgenin, which has been shown to reduce inflamm
and promote immune system balance in mice. It also may
stimulate the growth and development of nerve cells in the
brain also in mice. Celery seed extracts have been shown
to help lower blood pressure in hypertensive rats. And there's
(10:16):
a flavonoid called lutelin that in the lab has been
shown to make cancer cells more susceptible to chemotherapy, chemicals.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
There's a lot going on there, there is.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
But wait, there's more. What there's some human evidence. Finally
we get to humans. Yes, that extracts of celery may
help relieve menstrual discomfort and can work as a mosquito repellent.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Oh man, I could have used that a couple of
weekends ago. I think I got seventy plus mosquito bombs.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Oh my goodness, I mean I mean bugspray also works,
is the thing?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Don't fall asleep outside kids?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Oh no, don't well, at least not.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Without planning to. Yeah, that's better.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yeah, and it's like you'd have to like that salary
all around me. No, you really have to, like like
like coak either. Yeah, like like get an extract and
rub it on your skin. It's not just what I
have smelled of celery. It's not like garlic for vampires. Yes,
you would have smelled of celery. Dylan would have hated you.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Dylan could never hate It's true. It's true.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
He's agreeing. But yeah, the jury is still way out
on all of this. And that goes double or even
double plus for for anything else that celery is used
to treat. If you want to incorporate more celery into
your diet, Go for it, but check with the doctor
before taking it or it's extracts in medicinal amounts. It
(11:43):
can also interfere with some drugs, like those that increase
your sensitivity to sunlight and some sedatives. So yeah, just
before you take anything in medicinal doses, maybe check with
the doctor. Oh yeah, make sure you're doing it right.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
You're not medicinal podcast, not at all. Nope, we're more
food and pun category. If that was a category and
I tubes, that's where we would be. Yes, it would
be the only one. Well no, no, not at all, No,
not at all, But wou'd be would.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Be among great companies.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
We would be among excellent companies.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
I would serve them my best celery.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Oh my gosh. The average American does eat about six
pounds of celery a year.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Can I assume a lot of that is cooked into
other things? Maybe aside buffalo wings?
Speaker 1 (12:28):
I don't know, side buffalo wings or peanut butter related. Sure,
I eat a lot of ants on logs, which is
an excuse to eat more peanut butter. But I do
eat the celery and celery juice is apparently a really
big trend right now. I did not go down this
rabbit hole.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I think it's for all those potential medicinal benefit things.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I gotta say, celery juice, I'll try it, but as.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
An ingredient and other vegetable juice. Still and agrees with
you so hard he's out there to shake in his head.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Just Nope, I've intrigued.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
But it sounds more like something i'd want to base
a chicken in than something that I'd got to drink myself. Yeah,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
It is bright green. It's like brighter green Celery is,
at least in pictures I saw, which makes me a
litt little suspicious.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, anyway, I see you photoshop Instagram, Lauren does she
sees right through you.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
You speaking of suspicious things, Celery does have some suspicious
things in its history, which we're going to talk about.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
But first we're going to take a quick break for
a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Celery,
as you might imagine, is way old, really old, really
really old. But the evidence is really hard to come by.
Oh yeah, archaeologists found some celery seeds and four thousand
BCE Sweden, which should that possibly people were trading with it.
(14:03):
Maybe By fifth century CE, a different type of celery
called small adge was present in China. And thank you
Confucius for writing things down about smallage.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Very helpful.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yes, future podcasters tip our hats to you. Ancient Egyptians
gathered up celery, but more for the seeds, which they
used for seasoning, and ancient Greeks preferred it more for
medicinal purposes, but they did use it culinarily.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Those wild celeries, the smallage types that were around at
the time, were much more bitter than today's celery.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Oh. Yes. In ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and ancient China,
celery was used as a medicine, particularly for hangovers and afrodiazyx,
also to control hysteria. Oh yep, the bank goodness, Yes,
I'll remember that next time. The Greeks and Romans used
(14:58):
the leaves as part of the crowd worn by victorious athletes,
and we know that too, thanks to plenty. Is it plenty?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
I've forgotten it's plenty, yes ha.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
King Tut's tomb contained a celery leaf wreath, and celery
appeared in Homer's eighteen fifty BCE, the Odyssey Parsley, Celary's
close relative has a much more defined history as an
ancient food stuff. It was also kind of related. We
used to prevent intoxication, so can't wait to do some
(15:32):
research on Oh yeah, personally, and because we love a
good superstition around here. The ancient Egyptians thought that under
certain circumstances, celery brought you very bad fortune. I couldn't
find what those circumstances were.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Or what type of bad fortune it might be, so.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Beware, beware. Vaguely. In ancient Greece, celery was viewed as
wholly a byproduct of the blood of Cadmulos and was
associated with the cult of death, in part because of
the dark leaf color, and because of that it was
common to bury the dead with a wreath of celery.
(16:12):
Celsus describe celery se pills that were used for pain
relief in thirty CE, and the oldest written instance of
the word celeeri, the French root of the modern word celery,
is from ninth century CE and a poem espousing its
medicinal value, and it sounds like quite the poem.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
It's one of those plant words that is basically always
just meant celery, like pretty straightforwardly, with no other root words.
That is, the English word small age meanwhile, comes from
a combination of small and another French word for celery, USh,
which roots from the Latin for b and indicates that
(16:54):
bees totally dug celery and parsley flowers. Oh bees, there's
still one of my favorite. Oh yeah, we've talked about
on this show, and a time I can talk about
a bee we are in.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
It seems as though for a long time celery was
seen as medicinal only, not a food thing you would eat.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Not on purpose now no.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
An Italian text from the fourteenth century CE described celery
as quote rank course and poisonous. Oh. Celery appeared in
gardens in Italy and northern Europe in the sixteenth century,
but it was certainly still viewed as a curative and
not a food. In sixteen twenty three, France produced the
first written record of celery as a food thing, but
(17:41):
primarily as a flavoring, which is what it was relegated
to for about a century. But by the mid seventeenth
century French and Italians might eat celery with a little
bit of dressing, and most likely this was a smaller, tougher,
probably more better celery. It wasn't until the late seventeenth
(18:01):
and early eighteenth century that Gardner started to hone growing
techniques to improve upon celery.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, they'd cover the celeries growing leaf stocks with soil,
which created these paler, less better stocks.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yes, and this made the flavor less overpowering and better
for salads. But this also made celery more expensive, which
means that, yes, this new and improved celery was a
rich people food. It was also seen as a food
to beef up other dishes, which I find interesting since
it still sort is seen that way. Yeah, and also
(18:38):
maybe as part of a hanger or cure, which again
it is still sort of see that way. In eighteenth
century Sweden, wealthy families stored celery in their cellars during
the winter. And now that rich folks were enjoying celery
and the flavor was less punch you in the face,
it spread pretty quickly. By eighteen oh six, there were
four varieties in the United States. By the late eighteen hundreds,
(19:02):
Dutch immigrants to Michigan were growing celery in the area,
earning Kalamazoo Michigan, the nickname celery City. Turns out, though
some of that strong flavor lingered, and in the nineteenth
century US and Europe it was believed you needed to
bleach the green bits to get rid of the bitterness.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Oh wow, yeah huh.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
But let's go back to that rich people and cellary thing.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Oh yeah, this is great.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
This is another reason why it might be part of
holiday meals because it was seen as a luxury saved
for special occasions. It was a centerpiece of the meal,
and like literally it was served in a glass celery
vase so diners could take in the full beauty as
they ate. No self respecting well to do Victorian household
(19:45):
would be caught without a celery vase, and from about
the eighteen thirties to the nineteen hundreds, celery appeared in
numerous recipes, often as a standalone. The star Plain Celery
in quotes Plain celery was an item on a menu
at many luxurious hotels. It was served in the first
class cabin of the Titanic. There was also a celery dish,
(20:08):
like a dish specifically designed for celery to display its beauty,
and this was along with your celery vas which was
it kind of looked like a butter dish.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Yeah, like longer, yeah for celery.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
The people would soak the celery and chilled water before
serving to make it as crisp as possible. Once you
put it into your celery vas and you just eat
it plain, like dipped in salt.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I want to become a really just strange dinner party.
Hose we're going to bring back the celery vas. Gonna
have your pineapple, Yes it's the pineapple, gonna have my
tomato plant, and it's gonna have a sign like don't poisonous.
I love it. But alas the market got oversaturated with
(20:57):
celery vases, oh no, they were like not cool anymore. Man.
From eighteen eighty nine's The Steward's Handbook and Guide to
Party Catering, the tall celery glasses set upon the table
formed the handiest and handsomest medium, but having become so
exceedingly common, they are discarded at present at fashionable tables,
(21:18):
and the celery is laid upon very long and narrow dishes.
Exceedingly common. Celery was still popular, though, and in England
it became common to have celery along with your cheese. Course.
Celer was also seen as a good palate cleanser.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
After fish was basically always served with palate cleansing relish trays.
And this is probably where that tradition of celery being
on the side of that fanciest of foods, buffalo wings,
probably comes from.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
I do like it alongside buffalo wings. I feel like
it gives a nice Maybe it is palate cleansing. It's
something that's very opposite of what I'm eating.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Right right, and it's sort of like a nice break. Yeah,
and you dip it in the blue cheese sauce. It's
like a cool to the hot right ah. Oh. Other
than as a palate cleanser, sort of the opposite of
a palate cleanser, I suppose it was also frequently served
al gratin baked into like celery cheese casseroles.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
And around this time China started to cultivate a leafier
type of celery better for soups, now sometimes called Chinese celery,
while the Europeans cultivated a much crunchier variety.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
And by the early nineteen hundreds, celery stuffed with cream
cheese was served in the West as either a salad
course or a very formal dinner cheese course. Formal dinner
cheese course. Times have change, they certainly have. Yes, By
the middle of the twentieth century it was more or
less I mean it had gone through that thing that
(22:49):
kind of like aspects and a lot of other things
went through where it became. It went from being very
fancy to we're trying to be fancy to have it
in your lunch.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Kids, right, Although I have noticed semi recently, maybe more
a couple of years ago, but that like a puade,
celery was pretty popular, or celery roots specifically probably yeah, yeah,
at fancy places. So I mean it's delicious if you
know you're into that sort of thing, yeah, and if
(23:19):
you're not, no judgment, no judgement.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Eat what you like, Eat what you like.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
But that is our crash course on celery. Hmmm, I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
You're still working on it.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
That's okay, Yeah, I'll come. There's a Cuthulu celery stock
in there.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
The Celery Stalks at Midnight was the name was the
name of a children's book from the nineties in the
Binicula series, What Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
You Were Like a coofy Salary.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
The Panicular series was about this rabbit that the cat
and dog in the house thought was a vampire rabbit.
And oh yeah, and it like it would like it
would like suck the life out of vegetables, not not people,
just vegetables.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
So the Celery was in mortal danger.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, oh no, I've got to.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Read this least find this now. Oh man, yep, that
makes me pretty happy.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
We can find you a copy.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Excellent, And that about brings us to the end of
this episode.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
But not quite no, because first we're going to take
one more quick break for a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsors, And that brings us
to the end of this classic episode. We hope you
enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed re running it.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
If you have a strong opinion about Celery, please get
in touch.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
If you have a Celery dish oh.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Oh yes, if this is a thing that you have
in your family, I mean, I mean, I mean we're
talking about like the dishware, but also a recipe both.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
All yeah, yes, yeah, all is welcome and you can
contact us in a multitude of ways that You can
email us at hello at saberpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Saber pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Sare is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots of more good things are
(25:46):
coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annis and.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we have a classic episode
for you about Celery.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, any particular reason this was on your mind, Lauren.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, you know, I was, you know, filing through our
backlog and Celery is, you know, with with the holidays
upon us. Celery is an ingredient in a lot of
those kind of classic holiday dishes. And furthermore, it has
such an interesting history of being incredibly fancy, which is
(00:45):
low key why it's incorporated in some of these fancy
holiday dishes like holiday feast dishes. And also it is delightful.
It's just or I mean, I think it's delightful. Y'all
are allowed to think whatever you want. But the your
fanciness that Celery achieved in its history, it's great.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
It is one of my favorite things we talked about
in this episode was Celery dishes. Yeah, the vases and
the dishes. Yeah, oh yes, And I do I love
that Celery kind of occupy is the space of historically
being fancy. Let's display it, let's put it in this
(01:28):
dish to now where it is still involved in a
lot of our holiday dishes, but it's also sort of
like like we see it as something we don't want
to eat too much, especially.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
As kids, Like yeah, like, oh that's healthy and kind
of gross. Yeah, I personally I like the flavor of celery,
but some people really do not.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Like all right, Yeah, sure, I like it, and I
especially I feel like I've been going on and on
about this in our recent episodes, but I love soups
and I love it. It absorbs flavor really well. Yeah. Yeah,
soups adds a nice little touch. Yeah, yeah, a little crunch.
I did like it with peanut butter as a kid.
(02:16):
But yeah, people have strong opinions about celery, which we love.
We love strong pinions absolutely.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Oh yeah, but yeah, I suppose that without further ado,
we should let former Annie and Lauren take it away.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Hello, I'm welcome to food Stuff. I'm Annie Rees.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And I'm Lauren vocal Bomb, and today we're talking about celery.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Everyone clicks away, Nope, no stick around. It's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Is it's surprisingly fascinating. The history is great.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, yeh. That's one of the reasons we're talking about
it because, as you may know, we recently went to Ashville,
North Carolina. We went to the Biltmore House and I
can't personally remember those, but people told us afterwards that
there were fancy Celery dishes in the Biltmore House.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, and we needed to know more.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I got too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Also, yeah, I can't find any records of these fancy
Celery dishes online, any photos or anything like that. But
for the first guests that the Biltmore entertained in eighteen
ninety five over Christmas, celery was high on the list
of supplies to have on hand, along with a honey,
black walnuts, chestnuts, eggs, fish, and lobsters.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
It's an interesting assortment of things. Yeah, huh, all right,
well let's ask the question, then, shall.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
We yees start as we usually do? Celery? What is it?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
The healthy part of your order of wings, a vehicle
for peanut butter in the case of ants on a log?
Oh sure, something stepped inside your Thanksgiving turkey, A garnish
for a bloody mary in, your favorite old bass seasoning,
one of the Holy Trinity, and the French mirepoist.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
All of those things.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yes, also super producer Dylan's.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Second least favorite food I get behind cucumber.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
We'll have to find out the third and that will
be coming.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah. Celery is the thing that I use a lot.
Is I've said before in the show I can't have
I shouldn't eat like onion or bell pepper. So a
lot of the time when I start, if I'm cooking
a dish, my base layer of vegetation is chopped celery
and carrot to give everything a little bit of a flavor.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah. Yeah, I like celery. I feel like it's a
good absorber.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, and it adds water. It's nice and flavorful in
a way that I personally like. It's okay to not
I know many people who dislike celery.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, I would have to say most people I know
are not fans.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I don't like eating it raw, but I think it anyway.
Celery is an aromatic green or green yellow vegetable in
the species Apium grevail lends. Different varietals of celery have
been developed for three distinct culinary parts, dulce for the
firm stalks that we often encounter here in the United States,
(05:24):
secle linum for the more tender stalks, and leaves. Primarily
for the leaves, this is also called smallidge or confusingly
wild celery. Although it's not truly wild, but it is
the closest to the original wild celeries, and to make
things even easier, not true. Truly wild celeries are also
sometimes called smallidge. Yeah thanks humans.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah that confused to me for a good minute. It's okay.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
The third variety is Rapacium, grown for the white root
and is also called celariac, though bariac isn't really a root,
it's actually a bulbous stem that grows half in and
half out of the ground.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
A lot of clarity here, yeah, yep.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
The stalks are prized for their crunch and their fiber,
the leaves for their tenderness, and the celariac for its
starchy creaminess. Another culinary part of the celery plant, though,
is its seeds, commonly ground and used as a spice
or as the celery part of celery salt.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Ah yeah, yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And all of these parts have a fresh, herbal, green, savory,
nutty sweet sort of flavor. All can be eaten fresh
and raw, but generally maybe aside from the seeds become
kind of like melty soft when they're cooked, The stalks
and leaves can disappear into almost nothing, and the root
scare quotes root behaves a little bit like like a
(06:52):
parsnipper carrot.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Also want to include this quote from the New World Encyclopedia.
Celiac is not as popular as other root vegetables, especially
in the Western Hemisphere, very possibly because of its garish
appearance before cleaning. It has been described as a vegetable octopus.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
What if you've never seen one? That the true roots
of this root grow down off of the bottom half
of the bulb and an, yeah, it looks a little
bit squidty. Really yeah, Oh that's so cool, kind of
kind of cthulhuy. Yeah, there's a fun there, and I'm
going to come up with it later. Excellent.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
The family that celery belongs to, belafers is chalk full
of poisonous plants, including water hemlock, which is what killed Socrates.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
It's also the family that gives us parsley, human parsnip,
and coriander.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
So net positive net positive. Celery or Celery's wild ancestors anyway,
is native to the Mediterranean, but nowadays it's grown in
North America and temperate Europe. Small adge is grown in
the Mediterranean and Asia, and you can find wild types
(08:09):
all over from Algeria to New Zealand to India and
in the US, California is the biggest producer. And I
read a lot about seasonality when it comes to celery.
It's best in the US in November to December. Yeah,
and that's one of the reasons it probably shows up
in a lot of holiday dishes and soups around here.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, it's a cool weather crap for sure.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yeah, but this means that the rest of the year,
a lot of us are probably eating bad celery.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Either bad celery like subpar clery or celery that has
been shipped so far.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Right. Yeah, that came up whole lot when I was
researching this, and it's kind of made me want to.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Like rethink my celery consumption.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, yeah, kind of. Yeah. Nutrition wise, it's pretty healthy
six calories per stock, but that's before you load it
up with ranch or peanut butter or what have you.
It's got a good amount of fiber and vitamin C.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Also vitamin's kne plus A, folate, and potassium. Celariac adds
a bit of protein and vitamin B six to the mix.
Celery seed is probably not something you're going to eat
enough of to really make a difference either way, But
as you would expect from a seed, it's got some
fat and some protein, plus calcium and iron.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
A small subset of people are allergic to celery and
it can provoke as severe a reaction as peanuts.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I haven't heard of this. Apparently it's big and the
allergy is most common in Central Europe.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Also, celery stalks, leaves, seeds, and root have all been
investigated intensely for possible medicinal uses because well, A, there's
historical context, but b it contains just a lot of
compounds that have been earmarked as potentially beneficial, like lots
of antioxidants which can prevent oxidative damage to your cells,
(09:53):
which can help prevent stuff like cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
Then there's apgenin, which has been shown to reduce inflamm
and promote immune system balance in mice. It also may
stimulate the growth and development of nerve cells in the
brain also in mice. Celery seed extracts have been shown
to help lower blood pressure in hypertensive rats. And there's
(10:16):
a flavonoid called lutelin that in the lab has been
shown to make cancer cells more susceptible to chemotherapy, chemicals.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
There's a lot going on there, there is.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
But wait, there's more. What there's some human evidence. Finally
we get to humans. Yes, that extracts of celery may
help relieve menstrual discomfort and can work as a mosquito repellent.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Oh man, I could have used that a couple of
weekends ago. I think I got seventy plus mosquito bombs.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Oh my goodness, I mean I mean bugspray also works,
is the thing?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Don't fall asleep outside kids?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Oh no, don't well, at least not.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Without planning to. Yeah, that's better.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yeah, and it's like you'd have to like that salary
all around me. No, you really have to, like like
like coak either. Yeah, like like get an extract and
rub it on your skin. It's not just what I
have smelled of celery. It's not like garlic for vampires. Yes,
you would have smelled of celery. Dylan would have hated you.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Dylan could never hate It's true. It's true.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
He's agreeing. But yeah, the jury is still way out
on all of this. And that goes double or even
double plus for for anything else that celery is used
to treat. If you want to incorporate more celery into
your diet, Go for it, but check with the doctor
before taking it or it's extracts in medicinal amounts. It
(11:43):
can also interfere with some drugs, like those that increase
your sensitivity to sunlight and some sedatives. So yeah, just
before you take anything in medicinal doses, maybe check with
the doctor. Oh yeah, make sure you're doing it right.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
You're not medicinal podcast, not at all. Nope, we're more
food and pun category. If that was a category and
I tubes, that's where we would be. Yes, it would
be the only one. Well no, no, not at all, No,
not at all, But wou'd be would.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Be among great companies.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
We would be among excellent companies.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
I would serve them my best celery.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Oh my gosh. The average American does eat about six
pounds of celery a year.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Can I assume a lot of that is cooked into
other things? Maybe aside buffalo wings?
Speaker 1 (12:28):
I don't know, side buffalo wings or peanut butter related. Sure,
I eat a lot of ants on logs, which is
an excuse to eat more peanut butter. But I do
eat the celery and celery juice is apparently a really
big trend right now. I did not go down this
rabbit hole.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I think it's for all those potential medicinal benefit things.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I gotta say, celery juice, I'll try it, but as.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
An ingredient and other vegetable juice. Still and agrees with
you so hard he's out there to shake in his head.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Just Nope, I've intrigued.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
But it sounds more like something i'd want to base
a chicken in than something that I'd got to drink myself. Yeah,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
It is bright green. It's like brighter green Celery is,
at least in pictures I saw, which makes me a
litt little suspicious.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, anyway, I see you photoshop Instagram, Lauren does she
sees right through you.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
You speaking of suspicious things, Celery does have some suspicious
things in its history, which we're going to talk about.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
But first we're going to take a quick break for
a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Celery,
as you might imagine, is way old, really old, really
really old. But the evidence is really hard to come by.
Oh yeah, archaeologists found some celery seeds and four thousand
BCE Sweden, which should that possibly people were trading with it.
(14:03):
Maybe By fifth century CE, a different type of celery
called small adge was present in China. And thank you
Confucius for writing things down about smallage.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Very helpful.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yes, future podcasters tip our hats to you. Ancient Egyptians
gathered up celery, but more for the seeds, which they
used for seasoning, and ancient Greeks preferred it more for
medicinal purposes, but they did use it culinarily.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Those wild celeries, the smallage types that were around at
the time, were much more bitter than today's celery.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Oh. Yes. In ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and ancient China,
celery was used as a medicine, particularly for hangovers and afrodiazyx,
also to control hysteria. Oh yep, the bank goodness, Yes,
I'll remember that next time. The Greeks and Romans used
(14:58):
the leaves as part of the crowd worn by victorious athletes,
and we know that too, thanks to plenty. Is it plenty?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
I've forgotten it's plenty, yes ha.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
King Tut's tomb contained a celery leaf wreath, and celery
appeared in Homer's eighteen fifty BCE, the Odyssey Parsley, Celary's
close relative has a much more defined history as an
ancient food stuff. It was also kind of related. We
used to prevent intoxication, so can't wait to do some
(15:32):
research on Oh yeah, personally, and because we love a
good superstition around here. The ancient Egyptians thought that under
certain circumstances, celery brought you very bad fortune. I couldn't
find what those circumstances were.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Or what type of bad fortune it might be, so.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Beware, beware. Vaguely. In ancient Greece, celery was viewed as
wholly a byproduct of the blood of Cadmulos and was
associated with the cult of death, in part because of
the dark leaf color, and because of that it was
common to bury the dead with a wreath of celery.
(16:12):
Celsus describe celery se pills that were used for pain
relief in thirty CE, and the oldest written instance of
the word celeeri, the French root of the modern word celery,
is from ninth century CE and a poem espousing its
medicinal value, and it sounds like quite the poem.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
It's one of those plant words that is basically always
just meant celery, like pretty straightforwardly, with no other root words.
That is, the English word small age meanwhile, comes from
a combination of small and another French word for celery, USh,
which roots from the Latin for b and indicates that
(16:54):
bees totally dug celery and parsley flowers. Oh bees, there's
still one of my favorite. Oh yeah, we've talked about
on this show, and a time I can talk about
a bee we are in.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
It seems as though for a long time celery was
seen as medicinal only, not a food thing you would eat.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Not on purpose now no.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
An Italian text from the fourteenth century CE described celery
as quote rank course and poisonous. Oh. Celery appeared in
gardens in Italy and northern Europe in the sixteenth century,
but it was certainly still viewed as a curative and
not a food. In sixteen twenty three, France produced the
first written record of celery as a food thing, but
(17:41):
primarily as a flavoring, which is what it was relegated
to for about a century. But by the mid seventeenth
century French and Italians might eat celery with a little
bit of dressing, and most likely this was a smaller, tougher,
probably more better celery. It wasn't until the late seventeenth
(18:01):
and early eighteenth century that Gardner started to hone growing
techniques to improve upon celery.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, they'd cover the celeries growing leaf stocks with soil,
which created these paler, less better stocks.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yes, and this made the flavor less overpowering and better
for salads. But this also made celery more expensive, which
means that, yes, this new and improved celery was a
rich people food. It was also seen as a food
to beef up other dishes, which I find interesting since
it still sort is seen that way. Yeah, and also
(18:38):
maybe as part of a hanger or cure, which again
it is still sort of see that way. In eighteenth
century Sweden, wealthy families stored celery in their cellars during
the winter. And now that rich folks were enjoying celery
and the flavor was less punch you in the face,
it spread pretty quickly. By eighteen oh six, there were
four varieties in the United States. By the late eighteen hundreds,
(19:02):
Dutch immigrants to Michigan were growing celery in the area,
earning Kalamazoo Michigan, the nickname celery City. Turns out, though
some of that strong flavor lingered, and in the nineteenth
century US and Europe it was believed you needed to
bleach the green bits to get rid of the bitterness.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Oh wow, yeah huh.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
But let's go back to that rich people and cellary thing.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Oh yeah, this is great.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
This is another reason why it might be part of
holiday meals because it was seen as a luxury saved
for special occasions. It was a centerpiece of the meal,
and like literally it was served in a glass celery
vase so diners could take in the full beauty as
they ate. No self respecting well to do Victorian household
(19:45):
would be caught without a celery vase, and from about
the eighteen thirties to the nineteen hundreds, celery appeared in
numerous recipes, often as a standalone. The star Plain Celery
in quotes Plain celery was an item on a menu
at many luxurious hotels. It was served in the first
class cabin of the Titanic. There was also a celery dish,
(20:08):
like a dish specifically designed for celery to display its beauty,
and this was along with your celery vas which was
it kind of looked like a butter dish.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Yeah, like longer, yeah for celery.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
The people would soak the celery and chilled water before
serving to make it as crisp as possible. Once you
put it into your celery vas and you just eat
it plain, like dipped in salt.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I want to become a really just strange dinner party.
Hose we're going to bring back the celery vas. Gonna
have your pineapple, Yes it's the pineapple, gonna have my
tomato plant, and it's gonna have a sign like don't poisonous.
I love it. But alas the market got oversaturated with
(20:57):
celery vases, oh no, they were like not cool anymore. Man.
From eighteen eighty nine's The Steward's Handbook and Guide to
Party Catering, the tall celery glasses set upon the table
formed the handiest and handsomest medium, but having become so
exceedingly common, they are discarded at present at fashionable tables,
(21:18):
and the celery is laid upon very long and narrow dishes.
Exceedingly common. Celery was still popular, though, and in England
it became common to have celery along with your cheese. Course.
Celer was also seen as a good palate cleanser.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
After fish was basically always served with palate cleansing relish trays.
And this is probably where that tradition of celery being
on the side of that fanciest of foods, buffalo wings,
probably comes from.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
I do like it alongside buffalo wings. I feel like
it gives a nice Maybe it is palate cleansing. It's
something that's very opposite of what I'm eating.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Right right, and it's sort of like a nice break. Yeah,
and you dip it in the blue cheese sauce. It's
like a cool to the hot right ah. Oh. Other
than as a palate cleanser, sort of the opposite of
a palate cleanser, I suppose it was also frequently served
al gratin baked into like celery cheese casseroles.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
And around this time China started to cultivate a leafier
type of celery better for soups, now sometimes called Chinese celery,
while the Europeans cultivated a much crunchier variety.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
And by the early nineteen hundreds, celery stuffed with cream
cheese was served in the West as either a salad
course or a very formal dinner cheese course. Formal dinner
cheese course. Times have change, they certainly have. Yes, By
the middle of the twentieth century it was more or
less I mean it had gone through that thing that
(22:49):
kind of like aspects and a lot of other things
went through where it became. It went from being very
fancy to we're trying to be fancy to have it
in your lunch.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Kids, right, Although I have noticed semi recently, maybe more
a couple of years ago, but that like a puade,
celery was pretty popular, or celery roots specifically probably yeah, yeah,
at fancy places. So I mean it's delicious if you
know you're into that sort of thing, yeah, and if
(23:19):
you're not, no judgment, no judgement.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Eat what you like, Eat what you like.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
But that is our crash course on celery. Hmmm, I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
You're still working on it.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
That's okay, Yeah, I'll come. There's a Cuthulu celery stock
in there.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
The Celery Stalks at Midnight was the name was the
name of a children's book from the nineties in the
Binicula series, What Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
You Were Like a coofy Salary.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
The Panicular series was about this rabbit that the cat
and dog in the house thought was a vampire rabbit.
And oh yeah, and it like it would like it
would like suck the life out of vegetables, not not people,
just vegetables.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
So the Celery was in mortal danger.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, oh no, I've got to.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Read this least find this now. Oh man, yep, that
makes me pretty happy.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
We can find you a copy.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Excellent, And that about brings us to the end of
this episode.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
But not quite no, because first we're going to take
one more quick break for a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsors, And that brings us
to the end of this classic episode. We hope you
enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed re running it.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
If you have a strong opinion about Celery, please get
in touch.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
If you have a Celery dish oh.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Oh yes, if this is a thing that you have
in your family, I mean, I mean, I mean we're
talking about like the dishware, but also a recipe both.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
All yeah, yes, yeah, all is welcome and you can
contact us in a multitude of ways that You can
email us at hello at saberpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Saber pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Sare is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots of more good things are
(25:46):
coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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