HUNGRY GERALD

From the 19th to early 20th-century Celery was not just a popular vegetable in America, it was a national obsession. Other than coffee and tea, celery appeared on more menus than any other foodstuff — raw, fried, mashed, fed to ducklings, jellied. Wealthy families displayed celery in cut crystal vases as a lavish table setting. On one early 20th century menu dug up by the New York Public Library, a dish of caviar is priced at 25 cents; celery is 30 cents. Times have changed. Celery is a neglected vegetable. Not by BSK. Celery is included in BSK’s mirepoix that enhances many dishes. It is also an ingredient in chopped salad a la BSK with scallions, onions, radishes, baby turnips, fennel, parsley and cherry tomatoes. (HG, lover of Asian food, likes it mixed with cold Vietnamese rice noodles and gilded with lemon juice, fish sauce, sesame oil, soy sauce and chili oil). Don’t see celery on many restaurant menus these days (Sometimes used as a modest garnish). A great cooked celery dish was the braised celery served in years past at The Oak Room in New York’s Plaza Hotel. If memory serves, it was topped with a bit of beef marrow. Lush. For many years, diners at New York restaurants were served with a dish of celery and green olives on ice. These were nibbles to accompany the pre-dinner cocktail. That custom has vanished. Pete Meehan, in his book, “Lucky Peach: 101Easy Asian Recipes,” has two celery recipes HG/BSK will try. One is for “Spicy Cold Celery.” Thin sliced celery (cut on an angle) is smothered in a dressing of sesame oil, chili oil, rice vinegar, sugar, soy sauce and a few crushed Szechuan peppercorns. Sounds like a good warm weather appetizer. The other recipe is for “Szechuan Chopped Celery With Beef”. This calls for chopped celery and chopped beef to be stir-fried with Korean chili-bean paste and other ingredients and served over rice or Asian noodles. HG intends to cook this and will add Sambal Oelek to the HG portion. Some (include HG) like it hot.

Celery is a modest vegetable. More a character actor than a main star. Essential base ingredient for making all sorts of stocks and sauce; deeply reliable for adding texture and subtle flavors to salads (green, tuna, chicken, etc.). Otherwise invisible. This was not always the case. In HG’s youth, celery stalks and olives were always served at formal dinners as part of a crudité and often were a giveaway at good restaurants. Best celery dish ever was braised celery with bone marrow, a specialty at the Oak Room in New York’s Plaza Hotel. (Last time HG ate this was at lunch with the late Ron Ziegler, Nixon’s press secretary. Ziegler scarfed down one order of this luscious dish and quickly ordered another which he also managed to finish) and promptly hired HG for a lucrative PR assignment. Nothing to do with Nixon, HG adds ). Celery made a bit of a comeback when Buffalo chicken wings became fashionable. The favored accompaniment for those peppery hot morsels was celery stalks with blue cheese dressing. Celery has an affinity for blue veined cheese. The English often serve lush Stilton with celery. HG likes celery stuffed with good Maytag Blue or Stilton and a glass of port. Give it a try. The imperative is to get rid of the stringy exterior of celery stalks with a vegetable peeler. There is one place where celery–both cooked and raw–is consumed with gusto: Tuscany. Tuscans have even invented a pasta called sedanini, which translates as “small celery pieces.” There are two basic Tuscan pasta recipes that utilize celery: Sedanini al Sedano (celery is boiled until fully cooked but still firm and then mixed with garlic that has been sizzled in olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper and some of the water the celery has been boiled in) and Sedanini alla Crudaiola (a warm weather dish where the celery is mixed with peeled and marinated ripe tomatoes; garlic, basil, parsley, olive oil and red pepper flakes). Giuliano Bugialli, the Italian pasta authority, says the key to both dishes is to cut the celery into pieces that are the same shape and size as the “sedanini” pasta. Sounds good. Time for celery to make a comeback.