Celery
Apium graveolens var. dulceA
s long ago as 900 BCE, celery was at home This entailed another decision: to grow the
in the marshlands of southern Europe. In plants in a trench or pop a 1-liter plastic milk
fact, it wasn’t plucked out of its stick-in-the bottle over each plant. I’ve decided on the
mud behavior until the 16th century, when the trench. In midseason, I’ll tie the stalks together,
Italians began its cultivation. wrap waxed paper around the bunch, and heap
I really like its flavor in both salads and soil all the way up to the leaves, where it will
stews. What I don’t like is when the strings are stay as the plant grows.
tight and hard, and the flavor harsh and chalky. Having given you all the troublesome details
I’ve had several such encounters with store of intervention, it remains for me to provide
bought, and it’s made me decide to grow my some possible good news. Self-blanching varie
own and try to avoid these disappointments. ties spontaneously lose the chlorophyll and don’t
This will be a year-two project because I ran need paper or trenches, but there are strings
out of time and space. attached, so to speak, since the self-blanching
I got lots of advice from my expert friends varieties are not completely stringless!
that left me with some choices.
I had to decide to go for self-blanching vari-
eties or undergo the hard work of blanching The Numbers
the plants myself. In gardening terms, blanch- The leaves have more nutritional value than the stalks.
ing means to shield the stalk with either paper So use the whole plant for maximum nutritional
or boards to lighten its color and, in this case, benefi t.
reduce stringiness. Since I don’t have much For each 100 g raw (3.5 oz ; ½ cup): 16 calories, 0.14 g
space for celery, I decided to go with the extra fat, 0 g saturated fat, 4 g carbohydrate, 1 g protein,
work to get the maximum benefi t. 2 g dietary fiber, 87 mg sodium
112 • GROWING AT THE SPEED OF LIFE