[Sca-cooks] P: Celery Seed / Lovage

[Barbara Benson]

Greetings,

In my most recent Cooking Light magazine I stumbled across the following
tidbit:

"Celery Seed
The name seems like a no-brainer. But these aren't the seeds of
garden-variety celery. Most celere seed comes from a wild variety of celery
called lovage, and, like many other spices, hails from India. While it does
taste something like the celery everyone knaos and loves, the seeds' flavor
is underpinned by an earthier note and a hint of bitterness......"

>From McCormick's spice page you get:
Celery seed is the dried fruit of the Apium graveolens which is related, but
not identical, to the vegetable celery plant. The tiny brown seeds have a
celery-like flavor and aroma.

Gernot Katzer is strangely silent on the subject.

This is one of the ingredients oft called for but more difficult to find.
So, has anyone else heard of this? Is it factual? Is it possible that it has
been "under our noses" this whole time? Or am I just catching on to
something everyone else already knows.

Glad Tidings,
Serena da Riva