When it comes to the crunch

‘Our forebears knew a good thing when they took a succulent bite out of the individual stalk’

M RS BEETON was an enthusiast, offering recipes for celery fried, stewed, with macaroni, with cream, in a white sauce, with chestnuts as a salad and as a constituent in clear mock-turtle soup (the basis of which was half a calf’s head). Celery endures. Oliver, Fearnley-Whittingstall, Stein, Slater, Blumenthal, the Hairy Bikers: popular chefs without exception proclaim its virtue uncooked, as the central feature of a dish and as a constituent. Its oil and its salt enliven sundry recipes—where would a Bloody Mary be without it? Celery figures strongly in French soups and sauces and, together with onions and bell peppers, is one of the