Celery and the Vigor of Your Tool

Homer assured that celery abounded in the fields of Ogigia, the island where the seductress nymph called Calypso lived. Ulysses then arrived to that place after a terrible shipwreck of which he nearly did not live. It was in that island that Calypso, in love and possessive, maintained him captive for five years, until the gods found out and forced her to free him.

It is said that Homer named celery in this story making allusion of its aphrodisiac properties.

France, Mon Amour
Before the French Revolution, Grimod de La Reyniere (1758-1838), member of the Parisian aristocracy, who is considered the first gastronomic journalist in history, was known as an eccentric sweet tooth that was a genius when it came to advertising and untiring organizer of splendid banquets which were almost rituals in his villa.

In that time he wasted the family fortune and was a young "progressive bourgeois." The French Revolution that imposed austerity and violence against the aristocrats caused him to feel a deep deception.

His solution was to produce the first gastronomic newspapers in history, his famous “Almanacs”.

In this position, amongst other things, he confirmed the arousing qualities of celery, warning the bachelors that it was right at their reach, and about the aphrodisiac powers it could cause on them with simply eating a salad.

Some popular proverbs in that time assured that the crunchy and flavorful vegetable gave back strength to older husbands; that if men knew the effects of celery they would plant a some right next to their mattress, and that if the woman was aware of the qualities of this plant, she would travel to the end of the world to get it.

It is said that this simple but magical plant figured amongst the favorite equipment of Madame of Pompadour, a beautiful woman that was Luis’ XV lover. Her real name was Jeanne Antoinette d'Etoiles and in her encounter with the king Luis XV in 1745 they ended up falling in love, so much so that she separated from her husband and left to live in Versailles with the new title of marquise of Pompadour.

However, her biggest merit was not in the sex, but in achieving that the culture and the art were a question of State. It is known that, although during the two decades that she lived next to the king she knew how to secure her position and became his right hand, but she was not always his favorite companion in the bed.

In other words, she was not so much a provider of pleasure (to the contrary, she herself picked out the damsels for the king) as confidant and adviser.

With the years she was able to extend her influence to the cabinet of ministers and the court, something that usually is not easy.

She didn’t always propitiate the right measures, but - without putting the real authority down, because Luis XV was not man that allowed himself to be managed - the times that she intervened in political matters he went along in favor of tolerance.

She obtained better budgets for culture, organized competitions, protected philosophers, writers, plastics and poets.

“Did you lament the death of Madame de Pompadour? - Wrote Voltaire in 1764 – Yes, without a doubt because in her heart she was one of ours; she protected letters as much as she could: A beautiful dream has ended!”

He wasn’t mistaken: if the eighteenth century in France was the century of the lights, a lot of its splendor was because of her.

It is said, that she was a beautiful woman and that her sex life never suffered, even when the king had other companions and had to stay in small rooms and away from the court. Her liking of celery salads probably had something to do with it.

The historical chronicles also say that the traveling salespersons from Paris promoted celery saying that it was for “exciting the body and the heart, and to turn on the behind area”.

In the XVII century, the cook website of Boudoir dedicates pages to its qualities through dishes like celery cream, cooked celery with fish and butter, egg tortillas with celery, flamed in rum.

Continuing on with France, there was a famous cook Bernard Loiseau, who recently passed away, baptized celery as a “virile vegetable”.

The celery, classified as Apium graveolens by Linneo, belongs to the umbelliferous family. Parsley, carrots and turnips also belong to this family. 

It was used since long ago as a medicinal plant, as well as a food. The Egyptians already knew about it, and the ancient Greeks recognized its therapeutic character, awarding it as having sacred characteristics.

The denominated it as “lunar plant” because of its growth which is connected to the lunar phases. The celery plant requires of four moons for its total growth and is very small and sensitive during its first phase of growth, or first moon.