Celery quality in decline?

Cafe Society
1

(In Cafe Society because food).

All fall and through this winter, I’ve been having a hard time finding celery at any of a number of grocery stores that is useable.

It seems like at least half of any given bunch of celery is mostly hollow in its core, with a kind of dry white webbed matrix where the flesh of the stalk should be.

I’ve taken to paying close attention, but find I am usually paying for a bunch of celery and only 2-4 stalks are useable. And this feels like a new situation.

Has anyone else noticed this, or is it just me/my region/my luck?

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2

While the quality and size of the celery I’ve seen over the past few months have not been great, and I buy some every week, I haven’t seen what you’ve seen. Some weeks they look pretty good, but on others, not so much. I don’t know if it’s seasonality or something else, but I can’t remember seeing these issues before. I assume they come from California and Florida during the winter months, and I know the weather has been cool and rainy in Southern California over the past few weeks at least, which may be contributing to the quality problem.

3

I think more than half the fresh celery in the US comes from Mexico.

4

Sounds like “organic” celery, half of which is often unusable, IME. At least it costs more. I avoid organic veggies unless there is no other choice.

5

Hollow celery is old celery..it’s begun to get ready to go to seed.

When you choose, feel it’s weight. It needs to be heavy.

Your bad luck may be due to the time of year. Spring is around the corner. Fresh celery will soon be in your grocery store.

6

Vast majority is domestic.

7

The best is from Celeryville, Ohio. I buy celery often and have not seen any decline. Since I eat it as a snack I look for a light green color, they are milder. The dark green is good for cooking. The only time I have bought organic celery it had such a strong, bitter taste I could not eat it.

8

I have seen that condition, but not recently. I have bought two bunches of celery in the past month, which is a lot for me.

9

I can’t really say much because I personally hate celery.

IMHO it is a vegetable only in the botanical sense. But tastes vary, of course…

10

Haven’t seen that regularly, but celery seems to be consistently more bitter than in my youth.