I bought a celeriac bulb the other day, it had the celery stick and leaves still attached. They are very very green and wilted, but I thought I might be able to put them in stews and soups. I've frozen them. But then I wondered, are they safe? Could they be poisonious.
No worries about poisonous, and I don't think there are big issues with flavor/bitterness/etc. At least one of my seed catalogs lists their celeriac as "celery/celeriac".
Thank you for your answer, I just wondered because these were VERY green and I was thinking of clorafil in potatoes and the nearness in species that celery/celeriac is to rubbarb. I am a very frugal woman and try not to waste anything.
Chlorophyll is the green part of all green plants.
The toxic part of potatoes is called solanine, and found in a lot of Solanaceous plants (for instance green potatoes).
Rhubarb contains lots of oxalic acid. Rhubarb is not related to celery - unless you count the fact that they're both flowering plants. Celery wouldn't have a clue what oxalic acid looks like, let alone produce some itself ...
The dark leaf you get off a celeriac bulb can be quite a bit stronger in taste than the pampered sun-shaded light green celery stalks, but it's the same plant
- just a different growth form. Like you get round and oblong tomatoes - same plant, different cultivars.
Use less of your dark green leaf, unless you want the whole dish to taste of nothing but celery.
Henriette
Chlorophyll is not poisonous. The poison in potatoes is not chlorophyll. You would have to be thinking in a strange way to be worried about eating a vegetable because it was green.
Celery/celeriac is only distantly related to rhubarb and does not have the poison that rhubarb has. Incidentally you would have to eat a vast amount of rhubarb to poison yourself so don't lose sleep.
David
If you are talking about rhubarb leaves (as opposed to stalks), I wouldn't suggest being the guinea pig on this one. I've seen calculations based on the oxalic acid content, but it seems that there is at least one unidentified toxin other than oxalic acid in the leaves (at least according to
Unfortunately, all the medical journal articles on rhubarb leaf poisoning which I've run into are not online (not even abstracts) For example, Death of a child from oxalic acid poisoning due to eating rhubarb leaves.; Dtsch Med Wochenschr. (1964 Dec 11) 89:2379-81.
With oxalic acid, like with many things, we are talking concentration. Oxalic acid is generally added to store bought bread to keep it from spoiling. You will also find it in sour grass, that so many of us enjoyed as kids. Rhubarb leaves are the only example I can think of where you may encounter toxic levels of oxalic acid.
Yes one normally eats the stalks. Have you ever tasted rhubarb leaves? That child would have been very weird or force fed.
David
I've never eaten rhubarb leaves, I HATE rhubarb!!!
Uh...nope, can't say as I did.
My condolences.
That's those boats in Venice, right?
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