An edible sportsman's bouquet

A recipe for Braised celery with dried cèpes

My father used to call the once winter-season-only vegetable ‘cerely’, much as No1 daughter, when little, used to call trucks ‘rollies’, which made lorries seem almost as powerful as American 18-wheeled semis. But not quite.

Celery is that dieter’s darling - an edible that burns more calories in the digesting of it than it delivers in the eating of it. But it’s a vegetable that doesn’t inspire much respect, although a ‘mirepoix’ would be lost without it. Combined with finely diced onion and carrot, celery provides that foundation flavouring to so many French braised dishes from soups to daubes, the absence of it in British stews partly responsible for the scorn poured upon dismal boarding house life in angry English novels of the 1950s.

And yet, even while being patronised, celery has proudly survived many decades of food fashion as its own self. From the 1830s to early 1900s, because of the care and attention it demanded in its cultivation, it was such an expensive vegetable that wealthy families displayed it on the dining table like flowers in ‘celery vases’, intricate glass pieces now part of museum collections - though mine is unlikely to feature in any. 

Celery’s lineage as floral decoration goes back to the Ancient Greeks, who used it as a bouquet to present to winners of athletic games. Ancient Romans, on the other hand, preferred to employ it as an aphrodisiac.

In a less distant past of full skirted décolleté dresses and cigarettes captive in tortoiseshell holders, soft blue cheese was smeared down each stalk’s gutter for passing around with wicked cocktails. In the US, it has always been served - incongruously but oh-so-rightly - with spicy-hot chicken wings. British chef Jamie Oliver gave it pizzazz when he took a whole head and sliced it finely right across as a new kind of refreshing vinaigrette-dressed salad to which, in Jamie lingo, you could add ‘other pukka stuff’. 

An elegant Waldorf salad can’t be made without a head of celery. A chicken salad of yesterday’s roast mixed up in a generous blanketing of mustardy mayonnaise and handfuls of toasted walnuts and capers is cranked up more than a notch by a folding in of copious amounts of sliced celery under a light shower of scallions finely slivered.

Celery, Apium graveolens var. graveolens, is not to be confused with celeriac, Apium graveolens var. Rapaceum (as if you would), of which more another time (ie, next week, probably). It’s been around f-o-r-e-v-e-r. (What decent vegetable hasn’t?) It was originally a marshland plant, cultivated, it’s believed, around the Mediterranean about 3000 years ago, in salty, marshy soil near the coast. Not until 1664 was it first mentioned in English, by diarist John Evelyn as ‘sellery’, though the French had noted it in 1623. Only during the 16th century did the Italians first use it in cooking. As late as 1856 it arrived in America, introduced by Scotsman George Taylor, who brought celery to Kalamazoo, Michigan, where American big-band leader, trombonist and composer Glenn Miller boasted he had a girl.

It’s a fussy grower, none too happy in soil that lacks a salt content or isn’t constantly damp. Left to its own devices, it has been known to reach a metre/3.3ft high. Like leeks, in order to develop that white stalk, it needs earthing up as it grows. Celery that has been left unrestrained in the vegetable patch develops a bitter and emphatic flavour, not at all pleasant in the mouth. But let that tangle go on to flower, and you’ll have seeds to reap as a spice and, if you are homeopathically inclined, to apply in various cures.

There are historical records of celery’s use as a medicine to treat toothache, insomnia, hypertension, anxiety, arthritis, and rheumatism, and to purify the blood. Ayurvedic practitioners in India have employed celery seeds to treat colds, flu, arthritis, some diseases of the liver and spleen, and against water retention. It is still employed as a diuretic, with a variety of other medical benefits promised online, all of which tend to be prefaced by the ambivalent ‘hedge-your-bets’ modal verb, ‘may’. 

Celery’s British reputation as a cooked vegetable has not survived being boiled till limp and grey and cloaked in white sauce (which is to say, a totally flavourless béchamel). It’s a shame. Here’s a more colourful use for it, which goes well with roast meats and with game, and makes a delicious vegetarian dish or supper dish served with no more than a crusty baguette and perhaps a salad on the side.

Photo Klaus Einwanger: The Bruno Cookbook, Martin Walker & Julia Watson.

Serves 4

200ml/6 1⁄2 fl oz chicken stock
10g/⅓ oz dried cèpes/porcini
70g/2 1⁄2oz butter
4 whole bunches of celery, trimmed of leaves, outer stalks peeled with a potato peeler 
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 small clove garlic, bruised
2 tablespoons capers
50ml/1 ¾ fl oz vin de noix or Madeira 
Salt and freshly milled white pepper
2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 180C/375F.

Pour hot chicken stock over dried cèpes/porcini and leave to soak 15 minutes. 

Melt butter in an ovenproof dish. Peel off the fibers from the outer stalks of the celery hearts with a potato peeler. Halve each celery heart down the middle or tie stalks together and cut heart across its middle, reserving remaining loose stalks for other use. Gently stew in butter till colouring lightly then add vinegar. Reduce liquid at a bubbling simmer to nearly nothing then add stock and cèpes/porcini. Bring to the boil and add garlic, capers, vin de noix or Madeira and season. 

Cover dish with foil and bake 40-60 minutes. Check once or twice. If liquid is drying out, add a little more stock and lower heat. If there is too much, remove dish to stove-top and boil down over high heat. The celery and sauce should be syrupy and golden. Remove the garlic, sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Hint: To remove the tough fibres from the outer stalks of a bunch of celery, hold the bunch of celery hearts in one hand and run the potato peeler with the other hand down each of the outer stalks.

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