It’s winter so I find myself eating more soups and stews. They can be so good on a cold day.
But IMO celery tastes horrible and only subtracts from the flavor of soup by covering up other flavors. Why is it such a common ingredient? Do people actually like enjoy or is it serving some other purpose?
(Yes I avoid it in other foods too. Not to go off topic but water chestnuts are a fantastic substitute if you like the crunch. Try them instead of celery next time you make stuffing.)
If the celery in soup is crunchy or even detectible as celery, the soup is being made wrong. It should melt into the dish along with the onions and garlic. The only part of the mirepoix/trinity that should possibly be detectable should be the bell pepper or carrot, and even then they should be very broken down and no longer have a distinct flavor by themselves.
Yep, exactly. If it’s palpably in the dish then it wasn’t chopped finely enough or cooked long enough.
And if it is done right it can add a dimension of flavor. Carrot and onion develop a bit of sweetness when cooked a while. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but it’s not exactly what you’re looking for in a bowl of chicken noodle. Celery, being disgusting when raw, doesn’t do that and helps break that pattern up.
Celery, being disgusting when raw[…]
You take that back!
You take that back!
Spiderman’s pointing
Raw celery with peanut butter is a good snack
That’s interesting… I like getting chunks of carrot and celery in my soups. I deliberately cut them large, about as large as you can get whilst fitting on a spoon, for that reason.
Carrots get sweet when boiled in a stew, it’s lovely
They also reduce acidity of tomato sauce.
Sounds like OP would hate your soup
I appreciate that large chunks are easy to avoid… but that taste lingers, ew.
I make my stock with different veggies than my soup. I’ll do a mirepoix both times but when I’m making stock I dice everything and when I make the soup I want big chewable veggies.
I 100% agree with your celery position.
This post has nothing to do with texture. OP is complaining about the flavor of celery.
Yeah, and the flavor doesn’t stand out if it breaks down all the way. Their mention of crunch was a clue that they encounter chunks of it, which I agree are nasty in soup.
It does to some people, me included
Thanks. I think my side note about water chestnuts is throwing people off? Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that.
Water chestnuts are delicious though…so crunchy too
They don’t taste like yummy celery though, they taste like water chestnuts. Which don’t taste bad, it just doesn’t taste like celery.
Honestly they are usually in Asian foods Ive eaten and seem to only add crunch…but now I’m curious
40 people showing off their lack of reading comprehension by upvoting that comment.
this is the way
I hate the flavor so I still usually notice it even when it’s totally broken down beyond mush.
Raw celery’s crunchy texture is kinda nice but I agree that doesn’t go with soup.
Which part of the celery? Only North America sticks to using the stalk only like it’s some miracle growth. Most European cuisine discarded stalk for centuries, using only the root for soups and stews as a staple. It wasn’t until fairly recently when celery stalk started seeing use in salads in Europe.
Celery is part of the mirepoix trinity. Celery, carrots and onions , cooked low and slow in fat before adding to soup. It makes a sweet and savoury vegetable soup base.
Or the Holy Trinity of Cajun and creole cooking, celery, onions, and bell pepper.
What a day to be alive! A person called StinkyFingerItchyBum has just taught me about mirepoix. I’m disgusted, enlightened, and grateful. Thank you!
But why celery and not some other vegetable? Because it’s cheap?
No, because it has a delightful flavour for soups. Eating celery is blah, but in soups its magic. My memory is failing me, but I could have sworn celery was a source of glutamate.
The glutamine wiki says celery is a source.
it’s a source of nitrates.
Water Chestnuts are a fantastic substitute if you like the crunch.
Your opinion of celery vs water chestnuts is apparently the exact reverse of mine.
I still have strong memories of a dish my mother used to make a few times a year that prominently included water chestnuts and the sinking feeling I would get as I took my first bite. Blegh
Cool, wish I could trade ya.
Celery is genuinely one of my favorite parts of soups that use them. I LOVE the flavor or celery, and it is even better when it picks up the rest of the flavors of the dish.
To answer yours and the other questions about “why this ingredient”, the answer is very simple. Some people like it.
If you don’t, then don’t use it, problem solved.
…celery has a flavor?
Yep. If you’ve ever tried Old Bay seasoning, it’s the dominant flavor in that. Apologies to the state of Maryland, but I find it foul.
Of course you could also just bite into a stalk, you’ll taste it.
It does, but I only really noticed it first when using celery salt in my tuna sandwich mix. That’s probably the easiest way to spot it that I can think. Make a can of tuna and add a lil celery salt and you’re like halfway to a proper tuna salad taste just with that alone.
If “some people like it” then I would expect it in some soups. But it seems to be present in the vast majority of them, like to a disproportionate degree.
I mean, the reason is that it’s one of the main ingredients of mirepoix, and most people don’t find it offensive. It’s one of those background flavors that you don’t pick out, but is part of the typical base.
What I’m getting at is that if you don’t like it, just don’t use it. It’s there because whoever made it, decided to put it in.
Now, I’m sure there are all kinds of explanations about the enzymes, and the fiber and so on, but it’s soup, doesn’t have to be complicated. Just delicious :)
Also Cajun cooking uses celery, green bell pepper, and onion as their mirepoix. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find celery as an aromatic used in other cuisines as well.
In addition to what the others said about mirepoix, or stock, soups are experienced as more full-bodied or wholehearted when celery root is added. The earthy, bitter taste can be balanced by the right combination of sweetness (from other vegetables) and saltiness or used as intensifying effect for a strong umami taste, e.g. in poultry stock.
I haven’t met anyone who specifically disliked the taste of celery root in soups yet.
Out of curiosity, do you also dislike other earthy tastes, like truffles, lamb, champignons, girolles?
I find a bit of soy sauce works well if a soup needs more umami.
Yep I enjoy truffles and lamb. Don’t recall if I’ve tried those other two items but mushrooms in general are nice.
As someone who disliked celery in the past, I still find it enriches vegetable soups a lot. And by now I actually like the taste of cooked(!) celery. So yes, I would say most people just like it.
I don’t care for crunch in soup, but a like the celery flavor. I’ve added celery seeds to things I don’t want actual celery in. I’ll make stock with celery, onions, and carrots, and then strain them out.
I’m asking why it’s in so many canned soups and restaurant soups and even recipes. By all means make whatever you like at home.
I don’t understand what you don’t understand. It’s in so many soups and recipes because people like it. Most people love chocolate, but there are a small number of people who hate it. Different people have different tastes. It could be genetic, it could be a bad association that built up in your formative years, or whatever.
If all it comes down to just a matter of taste, that’s fine I guess. But before this thread I don’t think I’d ever heard anyone say they like celery in a dish or seek it out or appreciate its flavor or anything.
This is the beauty of the Internet! And all of us on the other side can discover that some people like you don’t like celery in soup, which is an alien concept to many of us!
Hooray mutual understanding! Thanks for posing the question.
Haha, right on. Cheers for a digital window outside our local bubbles, friend 🍻
Because it’s a very popular, traditional ingredient in a lot of soups. You would have the same problem if you didn’t like onions or carrots.
So the foundation of european soups is the combination of celery, carrot, and onion. These provide the base that most recipes are based on and are the only required ingredients in a vegetable broth outside of spices. As with many food things you can blame the french.
As with many food things you can blame the french.
Been waiting for that answer lol
I love celery and hate water chestnuts. Everyone’s different.
When I make soup my wife always tells me I put too much celery. I never feel like it’s enough.
I used to hate both, now I love them both. So not only are we different from each other but also from ourselves temporally.
It’s one of the those aromatic vegetables (along with carrots and onions, etc. ) that for most people (obviously not yourself) adds a background flavor that is not overpowering or offensive. It makes your soup taste like soup instead of salty chicken-water or bean-water. Its also fairly inexpensive compared to more meats and spices.
I guess? My soup tastes like soup (according to my partner anyway) without any celery.
But she had a canned soup earlier today and she didn’t notice the celery. I took one bite and noticed it immediately. So this may be at least half true.
Not sure if anyone answered the actual question but a reason celery is included is, in addition to being part of the traditional mirepoix, because the pectin content breaks down and results in a just so slightly thicker stock
That’s the kind of answer I was looking for, thanks!
I wonder how much pectin is in peppers? I usually think of it coming from fruit and botanically those technically are.
Commercial pectin products often come from processed apple skins, and some other fruits but mostly from the skins anyway, so you’re spot on
No idea if peppers will replicate the stock texture of celery but I imagine it can’t matter too much. You probably have to be extremely sensitive and test a lot of samples to tell the difference for that kind of subtle texture
I personally like celery so I don’t share your problem but I rely more on boiled potatoes anyway in my soups/stews for the starch as a mild thickener. I also love potatoes (:
Edit: here’s a source I used https://pickyourown.org/pectin_levels_in_fruit.php
I like celery. I add it when making stock (both ribs and leaves), chop up a few ribs and cook it in soup with carrots and onion, and I like to eat it raw as a snack.
I’m asking why it’s in so many canned soups and restaurant soups and even recipes. By all means make whatever you like at home.
Popular foods at home are popular in the store and restaurants!
I believe the saying is: The plural of anecdote is not data.
I don’t think you’ll like the social sciences lol
Maybe a better way of saying it is that a set of bricks is not a house. The organization and methodology makes data more than just a collection of assorted incidents. That applies even in social sciences.
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What kind of weirdo doesn’t like celery? Next you’re going to tell me rhubarb is too tart, or you have to cook fennel.
Rhubarb is weird but I have nothing against it. I like fennel, cooked or not, seeds too.
Fennel, anise, and licorice are such good flavors!
I fucking hate fennel, but I couldn’t possibly be more indifferent to celery. Ive never even considered it to have much taste. Fennel and licorice, though? VILE.
Yes, I genuinely enjoy the flavor of celery and distinctly miss the flavor when it’s absent. I grew up eating it raw with peanut butter, or melted/spreadable cheese. I grew up thinking it mostly tasted like water and was just a good vehicle for other flavors, but as my palate developed I noticed, and loved, the flavor more and more. In soups especially.
They say it takes something like twelve tries of a new flavor for your body to stop being afraid of it and actually enjoy it, and that most disliked foods are this kind of instinctual rejection. Maybe just try to force it a dozen times? I know that’s not pleasant advice, and I only recommend it if avoiding celery is something that will cause you life difficulties, such as in social situations.
I grew up eating it raw with peanut butter
I did too. Sometimes people would call it “ants on a log” and stick a few raisins on top. The celery crunch was nice but I always wanted maximum PB to cover the flavor. Later I realized it was way better without the celery at all, like just on bread (as PB&J of course).
Anyway, I’ve definitely crossed the dozen threshold. Probably ten dozen. I’m always picking it out of my meal when I try a new Chinese dish.
Same experience, just crunchy water or when cooked down will soak up whatever flavor you give it. Have also grown to recognize and enjoy the flavor even more but it’s still just incredibly mild/subtle unless eating it straight up. Coincidentally I feel the same way as the people complaining about it but with bell peppers or fennel instead. Chicken salad, soups and stews, Chinese food, all delicious with celery and onion combo. I’ll even substitute celery for a green veg in something like a curry instead of peas which I find too sweet, for example. I got the yummy cilantro gene too lol perception and sensitivity are a hell of a thing
I’m learning today celery has an actual flavor…and I’m perfectly aware of mirepoix.
I like celery, but am really interested to learn the answer here. The other ingredient that gets added to everything is onions. Fwiw I know the answer to that one: they’re full of sugar. “First, soften some onions…” is basically a way of adding sweetness to food
Yep and when those onion sugars caramelize, which adds a ton of flavor complexity. That one makes immediate sense to me. I actually like to add onions at various stages of soupmaking (for some recipes) so you get a variety of pungency and sweetness.
Celery though? I taste the same flavor whether it’s raw or cooked to mush.
I’m with you - celery is horrid. Right up there with coriander for me as something that completely overpowers and ruins anything it’s used in.
Do you mean the leaves, AKA cilantro? Do you have that gene?
There are dozens of us, literally dozens! But yeah I’m with you and OP, celery is foul, deeply offensive stuff. Cilantro too, but my hatred is reserved for celery. I’ve been told it’s genetic or something but frankly none of that matters when one hates celery as much as I do.
It’s my opinion that celery is both delicious and disgusting at the same time.
If you get very deep green celery, it’s horrid.
If you get light green celery, or you peel off the outer deep green fibers, it’s delicious again!
And the young leaves are absolutely sweet and delicious as all get-out.
But yeah I could see why a lot of people dislike it.
celery naturally accumulates produces nitrates while growing, could be where the taste is coming from.
I think you are an outlier in your palate for celery. Could you have an allergy or something? I like it fine, it tastes good and adds a really nice flavor to stock for soup. If you don’t like that flavor just leave it out when you make it, the rest of us might think your dish is missing something but who cares, if the something it’s missing is something you don’t like?
My penultimate child loves “cooked salted celery” as she puts it - she will rescue it from the stock pot, and likes stir fry of just celery and beef.
No allergy.
If you don’t like that flavor just leave it out when you make it
I do. But that doesn’t help me with soups from a restaurant or a can. I would enjoy so many more from a menu or grocery if they weren’t loaded with celery.
