by Megan Stoddard

Created on: November 30, 2010   Last Updated: December 01, 2010

To many of us, apium graveolens is a crunchy vegetable to add to salad or slather with peanut butter. It is often an ingredient in soups, stews, casseroles, and stir fries. Said to take more calories to digest than it provides when you eat it, this vegetable is valued by people trying to lose weight. Yet the bland grocery store variety, which most of us know, is a pale imitation of what you would get if you grew it in a garden. Its common name is celery.

Celery is closely related to parsley, carrots, hemlock, and all plants in the wild carrot family. Though references to it are found in classical Greek sources, it is unclear whether these sources are referring to apium graveolens or to wild parsley. The Greeks seem to have used the words, and possibly the plants, interchangeably.

Perhaps it was its close relationship to such poisonous plants as hemlock that brought some negative associations to celery. To the Romans, it was associated with funerals and death, making it a plant of ill omen. Yet it was also valued as a cooking spice and for its medicinal properties. To this day, celery seeds may be used in treatments for arthritis, gout, and rheumatism. Historian John Riddle writes that celery (he does not say which part of the plant, or how) was once used in contraceptive and abortifacient potions.

The celery sold in grocery stores is bred to withstand long distance shipping and long periods of storage. As such, it is much less flavorful than celery eaten fresh from the garden. If you have never had garden fresh celery, it is worth seeking out. As an added benefit, celery has a very long growing season. In climates where it will grow, fresh celery is available much of the year. However, it requires mild winters, cool summers, and plenty of moisture, conditions that cannot be met everywhere.

Unlike most vegetables, which lose some of their nutritional value when cooked, celery retains its nutrients. Not only that, cooking makes some of celery’s nutrients more readily available to the human body. It is one of the rare vegetables that becomes better for you when cooked. Its use in soups, stews, and stir fries serves a nutritional purpose as much as taste.

Though we consider celery a vegetable, it could just as easily be classified as a herb. Its roots, stems, and leaves, all edible, add a subtle, soothing taste to any soup or stew. Apium graveolens does a much better job of adding its voice to a chorus of ingredients than as a soloist in its own dish.

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