People with certain pollen allergies can suffer a cross reaction to celery (and other vegetables and fruits). This is called oral allergy syndrome, and many people with this problem don’t even know they have it. The only symptom may be itchiness or a stinging or burning sensation in the mouth, which might be blamed on the texture or taste of the food.
I had no idea celery affected people so differently. I’ve always described the flavor as “spicy” and let it go at that, but the “radishy/peppery” notes mentioned upthread come pretty close to describing how I perceive it. I like it raw, in a salad or elsewhere, and use it frequently in cooking (along with celery seed and celery salt. It seems to pair especially well with shellfish - oyster stew, or baked scallops e.g.
Most celery has a very mild flavor to me. Some has the aforementioned numbing mineral taste, but it’s typically just the greener stalks. The leaves are somewhat bitter to me.
Broccoli is bitter to you? It isn’t to me.
I think I lucked out genetically in terms of my palate. I like all foods.
I find it useful as a base for soups and stews, as an integral part of a Creole trinity, mirepoix, or soffrito. In these uses you chop it up and cook it long and slow, and it pretty much loses any identifiable individual celeryness as it disappears into the background—like the onion that it goes together with. Chopped up and melted away like that, as a base, it’s handy for lending any dish just a little extra vegetable-y goodness. I use it in mushroom risotto that way. You wouldn’t even know it’s there if you hadn’t seen me chopping it up.
The only other time I cook it is stir-fry, where it stays fairly crisp. Otherwise, I’ll have it raw with hummus, or when I want a low-calorie snack just have it raw and plain with a dash of salt and cayenne.
Umm… sorry to jump in with this… and perhaps to some it won’t be a welcome addition but I just wanted to throw in here that: my girlfriend says that semen basically tastes like one of two things. Celery or… I don’t remember the other one right now but, she says mine tastes celery-ish.
Sorry. TMI? Yeah, but this is the Dope so… what the hey.
I like celery, and find the flavor subtle but necessary to certain dishes (soups, stock, Creole/Cajun as mentioned).
I dated a girl once who was a really picky eater. One time I made her dinner, and made chicken soup from scratch with just carrots and celery, maybe a little onion. I thought it would be the mildest, most picky eater-proof meal possible. Then I watched her pick every last piece of celery out of her bowl. At the time I was amazed- she’s so picky she doesn’t even like celery?!? But now I know maybe she’s a supertaster.
I just hate celery. I won’t use it in any recipe. If it’s in something I can always taste it strongly and cannot just pick it out because it affects the taste of the entire dish. I’m not otherwise picky although I don’t like raw onions or cilantro too much.
Iuse a lot of celery, minimum one bunch a week. If I am using it raw in tuna salad for instance I favor the lighter green parts of the stock. I stay away from the white part and any real intense green parts and fine chop it. Cooking with celery I don’t pay much attention and just chop the whole stock. I have never hear anyone say they didn’t like celery before so have never really given it much thought.
If chopped celery is left open in the fridge it can off flavor everything in the fridge that is exposed if left over night.
I guess some people are celery blind.
Now I’ve got to wonder what’s going on with soup. Soup tastes like it’s missing something without celery. Is that what it’s always like for the celery blind?
Or once it’s heated do the compounds change, like what happens to onions and cabbage, and then everyone can taste it?
Should I be caramelizing celery, if that’s possible?
To me water Chestnuts have very little flavor. It’s weird to think celery is like that for some people.
Celery is vile.
I am not a picky eater by any stretch but I have been picking it out of salads, soups and sauces since I was a small child.
If the pieces are too small to remove, I simply won’t eat the dish.
Everyone I know thinks I’m nuts.
I’m a cilantro soap-taster, but I’ve always loved celery.
I’ll even add some celery salt to food I think needs a savory kick (soup, egg salad, some sandwiches, etc.). More so than most humans would consider an ungodly amount.
I rather like celery, and keep it stocked every week as a staple snack. Mostly I eat it raw with spinach dip. (Or rarely, peanut butter.)
However, I will concede that it stinks. After rinsing and slicing up several days worth of raw celery for snacks, my hands reek of celery. It requires multiple scrubbings to get rid of the smell.
My reaction to it is in between the two extremes in evidence here. I taste raw celery as mild but fresh and astringent. Not bitter, not sweet either, just astringent. I can feel the numbing sensation, but only very slightly. Sometimes it has a light anise-like note, sometimes the vaguely citrusy tang of freshness in coriander seed, because it’s a relative of both. I have no use for large chunks of boiled celery, but chopped up finely it’s essential to soup bases, and absolutely indispensable for Creole cuisine. I don’t use celery salt (or any other kind of flavored salt) because I prefer to control my salt input as an independent variable. My Creole, Italian, and Sicilian seasoning blends use both a little salt and a little celery seed, the latter of which I grind up with a mortar & pestle. A little celery seed goes a long way! That stuff is powerful.
This. It tastes absolutely horrid raw. Want a foolproof way to ruin, spectacularly, chicken salad, egg salad, ham salad, etc., every time? Add raw celery to it. You know, for, um, “crunch”, apparently.
HOWEVER.
I swear by the stalk-y stuff when making stuffing, soups, stews, etc. And when it’s been cooked-to-death along with other aromatics and meats, it tastes … well, pretty much exactly like what it’s been cooking with. So in that case, I can handle it.
Certain kinds of sandwich salads, especially those made with mayo, do benefit from adding something for crunch and texture. Celery is one option for those who like it or can tolerate it. Apple, onion, bell pepper, water chestnut, jicama, bean sprouts, and raw cabbage are a few of the other options. I like eggs and I like mayo, but plain crunchless egg salad on white bread is an example of something where I would rather just skip the meal completely. Reminds me too much of school and hospital cafeterias, I think.
I’m not opposed to the crunchiness. I am very opposed to 99% of all those salads being made with raw celery in order to achieve that crunchiness.
Hey, I hate raw celery too.
Brother!
One thing I find perpetually amazing about people is their stance on raw vs. cooked.
E.g., in addition to celery, I love raw spinach and carrots but not their cooked versions. OTOH, we all know people whose preference is the other way.
If there was some sort of simple system for the human sense of taste, one would expect some sort of consistency. E.g., just 3 categories: both raw and cooked, neither, or only one but in one direction. How does the 4th one happen?
Basically proves that the sense of taste is widely varied and complex.
(Which makes those “You just haven’t had X prepared the right way…” idjits even more annoying.)
I definitely prefer Claude Lévi-Strauss over Fine Young Cannibals.