[Sca-cooks] Celery or Celeriac

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach a5foil:
>At a guess, they're finding seed. Soft plant parts aren't generally
>recognizable after 10 centuries!
>
>I checked in Ann Hagen's books on Anglo-Saxon food, and she mentions that
>celery was cooked.

I believe it is used as a medicinal herb

>In the Plan of St. Gall, it's shown in the herb garden inside the walls. The
>discussion indicates that root crops were grown outside the walls, but the
>celery is right next to the onions and leeks. Possibly, being frugal, both
>stalks and roots were used.
>
>On the other hand, Hagen says that the finds at the Viking sites are likely
>to be wild, rather than cultivated, celery. I don't know if wild celery
>would have had edible stalks.

The modern Pascal celery, as well as celeriac, appear to be the 
result of 19th-century engineering. Wild celery, AFAIK, has much 
thinner, more fibrous, and much more strongly-flavored stems, similar 
to lovage or smallage. You can still find something similar to 
pre-19th-century celery in Asian markets, helpfully labelled "Chinese 
celery"...

Adamantius
-- 
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