Editing Celery (section)

==In culture==
[[File:Selinos didrachm ANS 685 670331.jpg|thumb|[[Selinunte]] [[Ancient drachma|didrachm]] coin bearing a ''selinon'' (celery) leaf, c. 515–470&nbsp;[[BCE]]]]
[[File:Celery (apium).jpg|thumb|''[[Apium]]'' illustration from Barbarus Apuleius' ''Herbarium'', c. 1400 CE]]

Daniel Zohary and Maria Hopf<ref>D. Zohary and M. Hopf, ''Domestication of Plants in the Old World'', (3rd ed. 2000) p.202.</ref> note that celery leaves and [[inflorescence]]s were part of the garlands found in the tomb of pharaoh [[Tutankhamun]] (died 1323&nbsp;BCE), and celery [[mericarp]]s dated to the seventh century BCE were recovered in the [[Heraion of Samos]]. However, they note ''A. graveolens'' grows wild in these areas, it is hard to decide whether these remains represent wild or cultivated forms." Only by [[classical antiquity]] is it thought that celery was cultivated.<ref>{{Citation |last=Malhotra |first=S. K. |title=18 - Celery |date=2006-01-01 |work=Handbook of Herbs and Spices |pages=317–336 |editor-last=Peter |editor-first=K. V. |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B978184569017550018X |access-date=2024-10-19 |series=Woodhead Publishing Series in Food Science, Technology and Nutrition |publisher=Woodhead Publishing |language=en |isbn=978-1-84569-017-5}}</ref>

M. Fragiska mentions an archeological find of celery dating to the 9th century BCE, at [[Kastanas]]; however, the literary evidence for [[ancient Greece]] is far more abundant. In [[Homer]]'s ''[[Iliad]]'', the horses of the [[Myrmidons]] graze on wild celery that grows in the marshes of [[Troy]], and in ''[[Odyssey]]'', there is mention of the meadows of violet and wild celery surrounding [[Calypso's Cave]].<ref name=Fragiska>{{cite journal |first=Fragiska |last=Megaloudi |year=2005 |title=Wild and Cultivated Vegetables, Herbs and Spices in Greek Antiquity (900&nbsp;B.C. to 400&nbsp;B.C.) |journal=Environmental Archaeology |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=73–82 |doi=10.1179/146141005790083858}}</ref>

In the ''Capitulary'' of [[Charlemagne]], compiled c. 800, ''[[apium]]'' appears, as does ''olisatum'', or [[alexanders]], among medicinal herbs and vegetables the Frankish emperor desired to see grown.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Oldcook : Capitulary of Charlemagne, De villis vel curtis imperialibus |url=https://www.oldcook.com/en/medieval-capitulary_charlemagne |website=oldcook.com}}</ref> At some later point in [[medieval Europe]], celery displaced alexanders.<ref name="alexander">{{cite journal |last=Randall |first=R. E. |title=Smyrnium olusatrum L. |journal=Journal of Ecology |date=April 2003 |volume=91 |issue=2 |pages=325–340 |doi=10.1046/j.1365-2745.2003.00761.x |bibcode=2003JEcol..91..325R |s2cid=85808284 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

The name "celery" retraces the plant's route of successive adoption in European cooking, as the English "celery" (1664) is derived from the French ''céleri'' coming from the [[Lombard language|Lombard term]], ''seleri'', from the Latin ''selinon'', borrowed from Greek.<ref>''[[OED]]'', ''s.v.'' "Celery".</ref>

Celery's late arrival in the English kitchen is an end-product of the long tradition of seed selection needed to reduce the sap's bitterness and increase its sugars. By 1699, [[John Evelyn]] could recommend it in his ''Acetaria. A Discourse of [[Salad|Sallets]]'': "Sellery, apium Italicum, (and of the Petroseline Family) was formerly a stranger with us (nor very long since in Italy) is a hot and more generous sort of [[Alexanders|Macedonian Persley]] or [[Apium graveolens|Smallage]]... and for its high and grateful Taste is ever plac'd in the middle of the Grand Sallet, at our Great Men's tables, and Praetors feasts, as the Grace of the whole Board".<ref>{{cite book|last=Evelyn, J.|year=2005 |orig-year=1699|title=Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets|publisher=B. Tooke; The Women's Auxiliary of Brooklyn Botanic Garden; Project Gutenberg|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15517}}</ref>

Celery makes a minor appearance in colonial American gardens; its culinary limitations are reflected in the observation by the author of ''A Treatise on Gardening, by a Citizen of Virginia'' that it is "one of the species of [[parsley]]".<ref>Quoted in Ann Leighton, ''American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century'', 1976, p. 199.</ref> Its first extended treatment in print was in [[Bernard M'Mahon]]'s ''American Gardener's Calendar'' (1806).<ref>{{Cite web |last=Shields |first=David |title="American Heritage Vegetables" |url=http://lichen.csd.sc.edu/vegetable/vegetable.php?vegName=Celery |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151001235331/http://lichen.csd.sc.edu/vegetable/vegetable.php?vegName=Celery |archive-date=2015-10-01 |access-date=2016-11-27}}</ref>

After the mid-19th century, continued selections for refined crisp texture and taste brought celery to American tables, where it was served in [[celery vase|celery vases]] to be salted and eaten raw. Celery was so popular in the United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries that the [[New York Public Library]]'s [http://menus.nypl.org/ historical menu archive] shows that it was the third-most-popular dish in New York City menus during that time, behind only [[coffee]] and [[tea]]. In those days, celery cost more than [[caviar]], as it was difficult to cultivate. There were also many varieties of celery back then that are no longer around because they are difficult to grow and do not ship well.<ref>{{cite web |title=When Celery Was More Special Than Caviar |url=http://www.sporkful.com/when-celery-was-more-special-than-caviar/ |website=Sporkful podcast}}</ref>

A [[Chthonic|chthonian]] symbol among the ancient Greeks, celery was said to have sprouted from the blood of [[Cabeiri|Kadmilos]], father of the [[Cabeiri]], chthonian divinities celebrated in [[Samothrace]], [[Lemnos]], and [[Thebes, Greece|Thebes]].{{Citation needed|reason=I think this comes from Clement, Exhortation to the Greeks 2. 16 but I don't have the tools to verify |date=February 2020}} The spicy odor and dark leaf colour encouraged this association with the cult of death. In classical Greece, celery leaves were used as garlands for the dead, and the wreaths of the winners at the [[Isthmian Games]] were first made of celery before being replaced by crowns made of [[pine]]. According to [[Pliny the Elder]], in<ref>[[Pliny's Natural History|Pliny, ''Natural History'']] XIX.46.</ref> [[Achaea (Roman province)|Achaea]], the garland worn by the winners of the sacred [[Nemean Games]] was also made of celery.<ref name=Fragiska/> The Ancient Greek colony of [[Selinunte|Selinous]] ({{langx|grc|Σελινοῦς}}, ''Selinous''), on [[Sicily]], was named after wild parsley that grew abundantly there; Selinountian coins depicted a parsley leaf as the symbol of the city.{{Citation needed|date=March 2021}}