By VI
Baby it's cold outside. Around me, there's a limited growing season and no year-round farmer's markets. Yet, thank you very much, I still manage, some oranges aside, to eat local. The hardest thing about eating local in Chicago: not managing your stock of root vegetables or wondering where you could put fifty pounds of potatoes. No, it's not having to eat all those root vegetables and potatoes. While my family and I allow exceptions for things that do not grow around here, those oranges; we will not dabble in stuff that we can get, at least in season. So, no matter how bad our apricot crop was this year, we will not get an outta region apricot. Which gets us to the celery. That's hard. I got a head of celery this week, and it made me really happy.
Let me say first and foremost that the problem lies in our limited crop of celery, but before I get to that, let me highlight a few other issues with Illinois celery. It's not really celery. It's like celery with an extra dose of whatever phylochemicals or neurotoxins that makes celery taste like celery. Most of the celery available at our farmer's markets taste so much like celery that it's barely palatable on its own. Even if you can take it as a crudite, Illinois celery mostly lacks another element beloved of this plant. Our celery is mostly groove-less. There is no place to put the peanut butter or blue cheese. In fact, last year my friend Farmer Vicki of Genesis Growers had celery so thin she passed it off as "German cutting celery" (is that real?). Our intense, stalky celery may have limited utility.
Illinois celery is not a munching thing. It is still a cooking thing. How many recipes call for celery. Nary a braise, broth, soup or stock does not call for a form of mirepoix, where celery plays an equal part. Celery is key, especially for the winter cooking around here. You cannot find local celery at the grocer. Celery is not a crop of the farm stands. At the farmer's markets, only a few vendors carry it. If you do not go to the right places, you will find no local celery. Those few vendors have the celery for about ten weeks starting in late August. Celery lasts a bit in the fridge, but it does not have the Voldemortish staying power of say, the carrot, its mirepoix friend. Celery's a watery thing, if Illinois celery has a bit less than supermarket celery, it's still mostly water. Mostly watery things seldom freeze well. I have come across one solution to the celery issue.
Celery powder. Not celery salt or celery seed. We got the idea from Plum Produce in Boston. Plum dehydrates seasonal produce then grinds into powders. I'm not sure if they've done celery. I'm not sure if localvores in Boston have a celery issue. But the idea seems like a good one. I'm not sure if I'll try with my special greenhouse celery I have now. I'm thinking of perhaps bronzing it. Next year, however, I am going to powder as much celery as I can. See, when it comes to eating local, the celery may be the biggest problem I've come across.
Vital Information records our mostly successful efforts at eating local, celery aside.
