Do you have a package of celery seeds languishing in your pantry? Here’s what you can do with them. First…
 
 
WHAT ARE CELERY SEEDS?

Celery seeds are tiny brown seeds (photo #1) that are harvested from the flowers of the wild celery plant (photo #2)—a different variety from the celery we eat. They are one of the smallest seed spices, and (trivia alert!) there are approximately 750,000 seeds in 1 pound, 45,000 in one ounce.

Diminutive though they may be, it takes very few of these aromatic seeds to deliver a mouthful of celery stalk flavor. Yes, the seeds taste just like the stalk.

(Food 101: The whole bunch or head of celery is called a stalk. It is composed of individual pieces called ribs. Celery hearts are the tender innermost ribs of the celery stalk. The darker the color, the stronger the flavor.)

In addition to their use as a spice, celery seeds are rich in antioxidants, which have been shown to have anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties.

Celery seed has been used medicinally in Ayurvedic medicine since ancient times, to treat arthritis, colds, poor digestion, flu, certain diseases of the liver and spleen, and water retention.

Whole celery seed lasts for years in the jar. But to test if your years-old product is still good, see the footnote† below.

> The history of celery seeds is below.

> The history of celery.

> March is National Celery Month.
 
 
USES FOR CELERY SEEDS

Celery seeds are commonly used to flavor pickles, coleslaw, and other salads. In Indian and Middle Eastern cuisines, they add a punch to soups, stews, and curries.

They’re also common in Russian and Scandinavian foods, including cabbage dishes (we use them in our stuffed cabbage recipe).

The seeds are also ground and mixed with other spices to create Cajun and Creole seasonings, celery salt, and Old Bay Seasoning, among others.

Tip: In smooth foods where texture isn’t expected, such as barbecue sauce, grind the seeds before adding them. Another tip: It’s better to buy it whole than ground, as the flavor will dissipate much faster from the ground spice.

Celery seeds are very strongly flavored, so just a pinch is usually enough. Add celery seed to:

 
 
THE HISTORY OF CELERY SEEDS

Wild celery, also called smallage, is believed to be native to the Mediterranean and the Middle East, where celery seeds have been used in cooking for thousands of years.

Initially, celery seeds were used in homeopathic and Ayurvedic medicine.

The medicinal plant in Homer’s Odyssey, written about 850 B.C.E.†, is thought to be celery seed.

The visual record of mankind’s historical link with celery seeds is in ancient Egypt, where it has been found in tombs [source].

[1] Celery seeds are the tiniest of spice seeds (photo © Savory Spice Shop).

[2] Wild celery is too bitter to eat, but is cultivated for celery seed (photo © Memphis Herb Society).

[3] Celery seed and coleslaw are a classic pairing (photo © Vermont Creamery).

[4] Dr. Brown Cel-Ray has been America’s celery-flavored soft drink since 1868. Here’s a recipe to make your own (photo © Serious Eats).

[5] Celery seed dressing. Here’s the recipe (photo © Cleverly Simple).

The Italians domesticated wild celery and developed it into a plant with a solid stem, without the bitterness of smallage. Thus began the development of the Pascal celery variety that we find in grocery stores today [source].

It was only in the 19th century that North Americans began to use celery seed, mainly in pickling solutions [source].

The 19th century also saw the debut, in 1868, of Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray Soda, a celery-flavored soft drink that is made from celery seeds.

It was developed as a tonic that was touted as “good for calming stomachs and bowels.” It paired well with salty, fatty foods, like pastrami, and became popular in New York’s Jewish delicatessens, where it can still be found.

Here’s the history of Cel-Ray, which may be poised for a renaissance.
 
 
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*If the seeds are odorless or their aroma is very faint, chances are that they have lost their flavor. Similarly, if the seeds taste weak or bland, they’re past their prime.

†The Iliad and The Odyssey are dated by scholars to the late 8th or early 7th century B.C.E. By this time the invention of writing was becoming widespread in Greece, and it seems that the poems in these two epics were also set down then for the first time [source].

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[1] The real deal: tagliatelle pasta with ragù alla Bolognese. Here’s the recipe (photos #1, #2, and #3 © Tina’s Table).

[2] Tagliatelle are a traditional pasta from the Emilia-Romagna and Marche regions of northern Italy. They are long, flat ribbons that are wider than fettuccine but narrower than pappardelle (about 6 mm wide).

[3] Lasagna Bolognese. Here’s the recipe. Bolognese ragù can be used on other pasta shapes and is the most popular sauce to use with lasagna.

[4] In the original recipe for ragù alla Bolognese, the chef specified rigatoni.

[5] Cooking Bolognese sauce (photo © Klaus Nielsen | Pexels).

What’s a ragù? If you don’t know, it’s time to learn, because October 21st is World Bolognese Ragù Day.

A ragù (rah-GOO) is a meat-based sauce. The Italian word derives from the French ragoût, from the verb ragoûter, “to revive the taste.”

The French ragout is a simmered stew of fish, meat, or vegetables reduced to small pieces, which became popular in the 18th century [source 1] [source 2].

> The history of ragu is below.

But for starters, the earliest documented recipe for a ragù served with pasta comes from the late 18th century in Imola, a commune in the Metropolitan City of Bologna, the historic capital of the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy.

The chef, Alberto Alvisi, was the cook to Cardinal Barnaba Chiaramonti, who became Pope Pius VII.

A ragù is usually made by adding meat to a soffritto*, a mixture of finely chopped onions, celery, carrots, and garlic, and fresh herbs such as parsley or sage.

The soffritto is partially cooked in olive oil. It is then simmered for a long time in tomato sauce.

(A soffritto is the progenitor of the French concept of the mirepoix, onions, celery, and carrots cooked slowly in butter or olive oil.)

Ragù can be made with any meat or game. Which brings us to today’s food holiday:

Ragù alla bolognese (often called Bolognese sauce in the U.S.) is made with ground pork, beef, and pancetta.

An authentic ragù alla Bolognese is not a tomato sauce with meat, but a meat sauce with a smaller amount of tomato.

Ragù alla Napoletana (Neapolitan ragù) includes sliced beef, raisins, and pine nuts.

There are many other types of ragù, each city adding its own touches:

 
Pick a meat: goat lamb, pheasant, turkey, whatever. There’s even a vegan Bolognese made with mushrooms.
 
 
RECIPE: RAGU ALLA BOLOGNESE

Here is a recipe with many tips from Tina’s Table, whose creator, Tina Prestia, advises that it takes five hours to make an authentic Bolognese.

Check out photo #1, the real deal, her ragu alla Bolognese served atop tagliatelle, which is the “official pasta” for the ragù.

Although in Italy ragù alla bolognese is served with flat pasta, like tagliatelle, a “Spaghetti Bolognese” using round strands of spaghetti has become a popular dish in many other parts of the world.

Here’s another recipe, this one is the “official” recipe registered with the Bologna Chamber of Commerce in 1982. It’s in Italian, but Google Translate will translate it for you.
 
 
ITALIAN BOLOGNESE VS. ITALIAN-AMERICAN BOLOGNESE

Italian-American Bolognese is not the same as Bolognese from Emilia-Romagna, in northern Italy.

In Emilia-Romagna, Bolognese is as much about the aromatic base of vegetables as it is about the meat.

Italian-American versions are very meat-heavy, benefiting from America’s much more affordable meat supply. It’s more of a tomato sauce with ground beef. Red wine is also used, instead of the white wine of Italian Bolognese.
 
 
BOLOGNESE VS. RAGÙ

Bolognese is a form of ragù. There are some technicalities:

 
 
THE HISTORY OF RAGÙ

The first sauce called a ragù, ragù per i maccheroni (ragu for pasta**), was recorded by Alberto Alvisi, the cook to the Cardinal Barnaba Chiaramonti of Imola, who became Pope Pius VII.

It’s thought to derive from the mid-19th century when Alvisi spent considerable time in Bologna.

Alvisi was inspired by French ragoût, which became popular in Italy when Napoleon’s soldiers brought it with them.

Wealthy and aristocratic Italians were attracted to French culture and food and readily incorporated classic French dishes like ragoût in their own culinary traditions.
 
 
The Original Recipe

Alvisi’s sauce called for predominantly lean veal along with pancetta, butter, onion, and carrot. The meats and vegetables were finely minced, cooked with butter until the meats browned, then covered and cooked with broth. There was no tomato, either in paste form or otherwise.

His recipe was published as Il Ragù del Cardinale (“The Cardinal’s Ragù”). Here’s the recipe.

 
The early 1830s. After the early 1830s, recipes for ragù appear frequently in cookbooks from the Emilia-Romagna region.

The late 1800s. By the late 19th century, the high cost of meat led to dishes that needed a lot of it reserved for feast days and Sundays—and only among the wealthier classes of the newly unified Italy [source].

Pasta was not part of the “cucina povera” of Italy—the food is eaten by peasants and other poor.

Farmers mostly consumed porridge-like soups, different types of breads and grains, and a lot of the vegetables they grew and foraged. White flour was expensive.

Technological advances of the Industrial Revolution at the end of the 19th century made white flour more affordable for the less affluent.

The adoption of pasta by lower-income people was furthered in the period of economic prosperity that followed World War II.

According to De Vita, before World War II, 80% of the Italian rural population ate a diet based on plants; pasta was reserved for special feast days and was then often served in a legume soup.
 
 
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*The Italian spelling is soffritto, the Spanish spelling is sofrito.

**At the time, maccheroni was a general term for both dried and fresh pasta.

†Rigatoni is also known as denti di cavallo, which translates to “horse’s teeth.” This cut has ridges that help to pick up and hold the sauce.

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From the orchards of Normandy, France comes Calvados, at its simplest an apple brandy. But it is the best apple brandy (or more precisely eau-de-vie*) in the world.

Once fer­men­ted, apple juice becomes cider, and, once dis­tilled, the cider becomes a cider eau-de-vie.

The cider that begins thew process is pressed from specially grown cider apples, sometimes with cider pears added (see Calvados Domfrontais, below).

The apples range from bitter to tart to sweet. They are different from eating apples and are grown specifically for cider.

Calvados is one of the three brandies produced in the Calvados département of Normandy. Calvados is produced from apples while the other two, Armagnac and Cognac are produced from grapes.

Today, there are three controlled appellations:

 
In all appellations, the fruit is harvested and pressed into a juice that is fermented into a dry cider. It is then distilled into eau de vie.

After two or three years of aging in oak casks, it can be sold as Calvados. Like other types of brandy, the longer it is aged in casks, the smoother the spirit becomes.

> October is World Calvados Day.

> The history of Calvados is below.

> For a fall cocktail or mocktail, check out this recipe.

> You can also add Calvados to sangria. Check out this recipe.

> If you like your beverages to sparkle, here’s a recipe for Sparkling Apple Cider Sangria with Calvados.
 
 
CALVADOS FOOD PAIRINGS

First, to drink: Calvados is great over ice as an apéritif and can be found in numerous cocktail recipes. It is a popular ingredient in hot toddies.

As a palate cleanser (to awaken the palate) between fish and meat courses, a small liqueur glass of Calvados with a small scoop of sorbet hits the spot.

For those who want more than one palate cleanser, consider le trou Normand (the Norman hole), a small drink of Calvados taken between courses of a multicourse meal, sometimes with apple or pear sorbet.

As an after-dinner drink, a snifter of Calvados is as welcome as any fine brandy or Cognac.

Calvados can also be enjoyed throughout an entire meal when a few small sips will delight the palate and bring out the fla­vor of many dishes.

You can sip Calvados with:

 
For dessert, pair Calvados with any dishes that include apples and pears, grapes, and in summer months with stone fruits (apricots, nectarines, peaches, plums).

Crowd favorites include anything chocolate, Tarte Tatin and other fruit tarts, and tiramisu.
 
 
THE HISTORY OF CALVADOS

While apple orchards and brewers date to centuries B.C.E., apple orchards and brewers of apple cider are mentioned as far back as the 8th century by Charlemagne himself. The mild climate of Normandy led to the planting of more apple trees there than anywhere else in France [source].

Before water safety measures in modern times, many people drank beer or hard cider, the production of which killed off harmful bacteria.

The 12th through 18th centuries. The Arabs, who invented distillation, had intro­duced Europeans to it in the 12th cen­tury. The first known record of distillation in Britain appears in 1553, and the guild for cider distillation was created about 50 years later in 1606.

Until the 17th century, the dis­til­la­tion of cider was used solely for local and per­son­al con­sump­tion. In the 17th cen­tury, the repu­ta­tion of distilled cider began to grow [source].

Calvados is one of the original 83 departments of France created during the French Revolution in 1790, named after a group of rocks off its coast**. Today it is incorporated into the region of Normandy.

But before then, the eau de vie de cidre was already made and called Calvados in common usage.

The 19th century. In the 19th century, production grew thanks to distillation technology during the Industrial Revolution. The 1860s saw the creation of the first indus­tri­al dis­til­lery [source].

At the same time, the fashion for Café-Calva† grew among the working class (photo #3). Today many people have re-adop­ted the tra­di­tion.

Starting around 1860, a tiny yellow aphid called phylloxera began to decimate Europe’s vineyards. France is considered to have been worst affected [source].

As the vineyards of France were devastated, Calvados, experienced a golden age. Orchards were not affected by phylloxera.

The 20th century. During World War I (1914-1918), cider brandy was requisitioned to make explosives for the armament industry due to its high alcohol content.

After the war, many cider houses and distilleries were reconstructed and gave rise to the thriving industry of today [source].

Prohibition (1920-1933) led to a rise in the pop­ular­ity of cock­tail drink­ing, and Calvados was one of the most pop­u­lar ingredi­ents for many cock­tails. Ernest Hem­ing­way helped make the Jack Rose famous in “The Sun Also Also Rises” [source]. The recipe is in the footnote*** below.

[1] It may look like brandy, but brandy is most often made from grapes‡‡‡. Calvados is made from apples (photo © Maison Lecompte).

[2] While a snifter is fine, Calvados is best served in a tulip-shaped glass, which con­cen­trates and reveals its full char­ac­ter, bringing out oaky and car­a­mel notes and (photo © Père Magloire).

[3] Café Calva adds a shot of Calvados to a cup of coffee (photo © Calvados Drouin).

[4] Trou Normand can be served as a separate glass of Calvados with a dish of sorbet, or all-in-one, shown here (photo © Mathilde Boclet | Normandie Tourisme).

[5] Pork Loin with Apples, Cider, and Calvados. Here’s the recipe (photo © Saveur).

Calvados almost ceased to exist as a result, swal­lowed up by the alco­hol quotas required for the war effort.

A 1942 decree established the Appel­la­tions d’Origine Régle­mentée (A.O.R) for apple and pear cider eau-de-vies from several regions in Normandy, and these became exempt from the requis­i­tion.

There were 10 of these AORs in total: Calvados du Calvados, Calvados du Dom­fron­tais, Calvados du Perche, Calvados du Merlerault, Calvados du Cotentin, Calvados de l’Av­ranchin, Calvados du Pays de la Risle, Calvados du Pays de Bray, Calvados du Mor­tainais, Calvados du Pays du Merlerault.

This recognition marked the start of a new era for Calvados. Pro­du­cers were obliged to adhere to a strict set of spe­cific­a­tions, tightly-reg­u­lated pro­duc­tion methods, and spe­cif­ic ter­min­o­logy with which to label their products.

In 1984, the 10 offi­cial AORs were grouped together under the “Calvados” appel­la­tion.

Today, all the Calvados dis­til­ler­ies are organized within the IDAC (Inter­pro­fes­sion­al Asso­ci­ation of Cider-Based Controlled Appel­la­tions).

There are also cider works engaged in the pro­duc­tion of Pom­meau de Nor­man­die and AOP/PDO ciders and perries…but that’s for another article.
 
 
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*Eau-de-vie (“water of life”) is the French term for brandies made from a fruit other than grapes.

**More precisely, Calvados was derived from calva dorsa, meaning bare backs, which referred to two sparsely vegetated rocks off its shore.

***Jack Rose Cocktail Recipe: Per drink, combine 2 ounces of Calvados, applejack, or apple brandy with one ounce of lemon or lime juice and 1/2 ounce of Chambord (substitute crème de cassis or other blackcurrant liqueur). Shake all the ingredients with ice and strain into a stemmed cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

†Café-Calva is the practice of pouring a little Calvados into one’s cup of coffee. It has enjoyed immense popularity in farms and bistros of Normandy since the 1880s.

‡Why is it called a hole? According to La Confrérie du Trou Normand, it references its alleged therapeutic qualities. As the Calvados graces the palate, its fruity and invigorating qualities cleanse and awaken the taste buds, preparing them for the next dish [source]. Why is this a “hole?” We believe that something is lost in translation!

‡‡Perry is cider made from pears.

‡‡‡Brandy: Although most often derived from grapes brandy can be made from apples, apricots, peaches, and other fruits. While brandy can be made anywhere in the world, particular regional styles are the best-known: Armagnac, Calvados, Cognac, grappa, and pisco.
 
 

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