Celery 317
18.1 Introduction
Celery (Apium graveolens L.) is an important aromatic plant grown mostly for its
fresh herbs as salad crop in different parts of the world. The dried fruits are also used
as spice. Celery is known as Celeri in French, Sellerie in German, Apio in Spanish,
Salleri in Swedish, Karafs in Arabic, Selderiji in Dutch, Sedano in Italian, Aipo in
Portugese, Syelderey in Russian, Serorjini in Japanese; Chin in Chinese; Karnauli
or Ajmod in India. The origin of celery and its allied varieties is not clear. Wild
forms can be found in marshy areas throughout temperate Europe and Western Asia.
Although the eastern Mediterranean region appears to be the most logical centre of
domestication, the distribution of wild types raises some doubt (Rubatzky and
Yamaguchi, 1997).
Celery was probably not under widespread cultivation till the middle ages, though
ancient literature documents that celery was cultivated before 850 BC. Celery production
developed in the lowlands of Italy and further spread to France and England. The first
mention of its cultivation in France was reported in 1623. The present cultivated
celery plants are a quite sweet, appetising and wholesome food but its wild ancestors
were considered poisonous. The ancients associated celery with funerals and believed
it to be a bad luck omen. In India, celery was introduced from France around AD 1930
by a trading company in Amritsar in Punjab and now is commercially grown on a
large scale for seeds and spice in that area.
The wild plants were used for medicinal purposes hundreds of years before its use
as a food plant. The early forms of celery having an adaptation to its marshy origins,
had a tendency to produce hollow stems and petioles. During domestication, selection
altered this heritable characteristic and reduced the associated bitter and strong flavour.
Celery leaves and stalks have been used as salad vegetables for thousand of years in
Europe and the Middle East. The seeds have also been used in traditional systems of
medicine in the Middle East since ancient times. However, the use of celery seed oil
has come about with the development of the processed food industry, as the oil is
widely used as food flavourer in the USA and Europe.
18 Celery.........................................................................................................
S. K. Malhotra, National Research Centre on Seed Spices, India