On Food and Cooking

enlarged version of a bitter, thin-stalked
Eurasian herb called smallage. Chinese celery
(var. secalinum) is closer in form and favor to
smallage, while Asian water celery is a more
distant relative (Oenanthe javanica) with a
distinctive flavor. Our familiar celery was
apparently bred in 15thcentury Italy, and
remained a delicacy well into the 19th. It
consists of greatly enlarged, pleasantly
crunchy leaf stalks, or petioles, and has a
distinctive but subtle aroma due to unusual
compounds called phthalides that it shares
with walnuts (hence their successful pairing in
Waldorf salads), and terpenes that provide
light pine and citrus notes. Celery is often
combined with carrots and onions in gently
fried aromatic base preparations for other
dishes (French mirepoix, Italian soffrito,
Spanish sofregit; in the Louisiana Cajun
“trinity” of aromatics the carrots are replaced
by green capsicums). In parts of Europe,
celery has been preferred in a more delicately