the.com/celery seed
A speck no bigger than a fleck, packing the punch of an entire stalk.
means The tiny dried seed of the celery plant, used whole or ground as a pungent, slightly bitter spice that tastes intensely of celery.
from The word "celery" came into English in the 1600s by way of French céleri, from an Italian dialect form selleri, going back to Latin selinon and ultimately Greek selinon, a word that covered celery and its relatives. "Seed" is plain old Germanic stock — Old English sǣd, a cousin of "sow" — meaning the thing you plant or harvest. So the name is simply the ancient plant-word married to the homely word for grain, the seed of the very stalk it tastes of.
- size
- Tiny enough that 70,000 weigh one ounce
- origin
- Comes from wild celery, not the supermarket stalk
- history
- Ancient Greeks used it for medicine, not seasoning
- flavor
- Slightly bitter, intensely concentrated celery essence
- hidden use
- Secret backbone of classic Bloody Mary salt
celery seed curry spice — used in indian cooking for centuries, especially in masalas and pickles across south asia
celery seed salt substitute — marketed by spice islands and other brands as a low-sodium alternative to table salt since the 1970s
celery seed extract herbal — traditional chinese medicine ingredient used for centuries to treat hypertension and inflammation