h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Celery - A73782633
Author: |SashaQ| - U9936370

A guide to growing Celery and using it in recipes.

what a glaring omission this was from the EG, so well done for writing this up, SashaQ

My sub-editor's eye has spotted a few house-style issues and typos but nothing that can't wait a week, for now

GB

Hi Sashaq, as GB said, a great piece. I have a couple of questions rather than any errors/ommissions.

You say in the article....

""The stems can be frozen, although they should only be used in cooked dishes once defrosted"".

Is the reason for the above a taste issue or is there a potential health issue here?

Do you know the amount of potassium, (on average) a bunch of celery contains?

I ask this as having Coronary Heart Disease I have to avoid food/fruits with high potassium content. Bananas for example, (which I love) I can't have anymore as they trigger problems with me 'ole ticker.

Apart from that, a great article. Well done.

BMT Scout

Indeed, good stuff. I have just one query:

"Step one is to loosely tie the stems together, just below the leaves, with string or raffia, water the soil thoroughly and then fill the trench."
-->fill the trench with what?
If it's soil, you need to make it clear in the previous paragraph that when you plant out the seedlings you plant them directly on top of the fertiliser, rather than planting them (in soil) up to the level of the trench (which is what I'd do).

That's it!

BMT """The stems can be frozen, although they should only be used in cooked dishes once defrosted"".

Is the reason for the above a taste issue or is there a potential health issue here?"

It's probably because the formation of ice crystals ruptures the cell membranes, which destroys the 'crunch'. You still get most of the taste, but the texture is different. Cooking damages cell walls as well, so you expect the modified texure in cooked celery.

Thanks everyone

I picked up an article on Vegetables in the Fleamarket, and hence I noticed celery didn't have an entry in its own right...

I have added some more nutritional information - it has 260mg Potassium per 100g, compared to 360mg per 100g for bananas. Doing more research into it, that isn't particularly unusual for vegetables, and the Vit C content is relatively low... I shall have to look into that in more detail tomorrow...

I have rewritten the two paragraphs about the trench to hopefully make it clearer, but I will reread that tomorrow as well

Interesting thoughts about the freezing section - the celery is generally cooked for a few minutes before it is frozen anyway, so its texture will change because of that as well. I will think about how to reword the sentence accordingly.

The wording about the trench is much clearer. Thanks.

Something that might be obvious to gardeners, but not others, is that while the plant is biennial, it is harvested in its *first* year of growing, that is, it's not allowed to flower and seed.

I like the "troubleshooting" header

I have made changes to the second paragraph, the footnote about Biennial and the paragraph about freezing celery, and I also corrected a couple of typos I found along the way.

" what a glaring omission this was from the EG"

Indeed - I meant to say that I noticed the entries about A384257 The Celery when I was checking nobody else had written anything for the EG on the subject, but I forgot the other day...

I can't tell whether The Celery was successful in becoming President of h2g2, but he's still around here somewhere, of course, and I'm sure he will approve of a factual Entry with his name on it

I add celery to my bolognaise sauce . The reason celery is added to bolognaise sauce, soups and other meat dishes is that it contains compounds called phthalides, which are flavour enhancers.

It might be worth mentioning folk medicine aspects of celery. Thus celery has been used in Asian cultures as a folk remedy to lower blood pressure since 200BC. It has been shown that this effect is also due to phthalides, such as 3-n butyl phthalide. Phthalides apparently relax the arteries, thus allowing the vessels to dilate, tus reducing blood pressure. Phthalides also lower the level of stress hormones called catecholamines.

In ancient Rome, celery was worn around the neck to combat hangovers. This may be the origin of putting a stalk of celery in a Bloody Mary cocktail, although another story is more prosaic - that somebody was delivered a BM without a swizzle stick and used the nearest suitable object, which happened to be a celery stalk.


Celery may also have anti-cancer properties.

Good entry.

Might be worth adding that some people are allergic to celery (& celeriac). I loathe the taste of both!

the entry, and celery, which makes many think I'm , which I probably am.

Best eaten with Philly or equivalent.

Also might be worth mentioning other related plant members:
Carrot, Parsnip, Celery, Fennel, Angelica.

And Rhubarb is not celery with high blood pressure!

and

MMF

Hi SashaQ.

This is an interesting and informative entry on celery. I think it should have no problem being picked for the Guide.

There are few tiny problems which can easily be sorted out if I point them out here.

100 grammes - that spelling of grams is very dated. Please change this to grams.

ideal for using in soups2 - you should put a full stop at the end of this. The full stop should appear after the 2 of the footnote, so you put it after the in the text.

"Unlike with other vegetables such as asparagus, where blanching means depriving the plants of light in order to make them grow white, for celery it means keeping the stems cool and moist as well as in the dark so that they grow more succulent and tasty without being stringy. " -- the structure of this sentence is rather clumsy. Could you rephrase it to make it flow better? Perhaps break it up into two:

"For most vegetables, blanching means ... Celery growers blanch their plants by...."

2½cm --> 2½cm (this displays correctly on more browsers than the way you have it)

3/4 lb --> ¾ lb

1/2 pint --> ½ pint


Not including Celeriac --> Not including celeriac

GuideML:

You should put at the start of each paragraph and at the end of each paragraph. You missed this in certain paragraphs such as the first, the one that starts "Celery is biennial", the one that starts "Slugs are a pest" and so on.

Please use capitals for GuideML tags - rather than

Oh, and by the way, Hypatia is the President of h2g2.

Hi, these are some comments that you might find useful, I think... if not, never mind, it´s my pleasure to share it:


As MMF has said, it would be good to mention the familiy of the plant. It belongs to the umbelliferous family (for the umbrella shape that form the stems that hold the flowers. Parsley, cumin, fennel, ... belong to that family)

More about Folk medicine: ( in the Mediterranean area ) the celery was used mostly, for its diuretic properties and was part of a syrup used as aperitive, diuretic and to facilitate the menstruation. You need the roots of asparragus, fennel, parsley and butcher´s broom ( ruscus) Take 30 grams of each root, add them to 0.5 l. of boiling water, cover and leave it for 12 hours, stir several times. After that add sugar.

For hangover or after a long period of medication with antibiotics, and weakness in general:
Take a whole bunch of celery and another of parsley and an onion, boil that in 1 and ½ litre of water at low heat for 45 minutes aproximately. Drink it with a few drops of lemon juice several times at day.

The wild variety has a stronger flavour and it grows in wet and saline/salty lands, near the sea and in inner areas too.

It was known by the Greeks as apion. It appears in the Odisey as selinum which was seleri in Piamonte and céleri in France, celery in English.
"graveolens" makes reference to its smell.



Maria, the pedant botanic

Apiaceae or umbelliferae family.

Umbellifer sounds better to me. But I´m not English so,I can´t say.


*hides the pedant crown*

Thanks for all the comments everyone. I'm in a really busy phase at the moment, so I haven't got chance to look at making changes just yet, but I will be able to devote time to it next week if all goes according to plan.

"It was known by the Greeks as apion." And it's called apio in Spanish.