Helen Peacocke says there are many ways to enjoy this delicious vegetable

Wild celery (Apium graveol-ens), with its creamy white flowers came first. It can be traced back to the days of the ancient Egyptians and was prized as both food and medicine to help treat anxiety, insomnia, rheumatism, gout and arthritis during the Middle Ages. It was also believed to purify the blood.

It has a coarse, earthy taste. Its leaves would be used in salads. The cultivated celery of today loses that deep flavour and takes on the sweet aromatic taste we now enjoy.

There was a time when celery was planted at the end of February and harvested in early June. Now celery comes in a number of varieties, including one named apple-green which is available all the year round.

To keep the stalks bleached, earth used to be banked around the root as it developed, to protect it from the elements and prevent it colouring up. This made it a labour-intensive crop. Now celery is bred to produce creamy, slender white stems tinged with green. You will seldom find that dark green celery we once ate on the supermarket shelves these days.

One of the great features of celery is its ability to remain crisp for more than a week if kept wrapped in plastic and stored in the vegetable draw of the refrigerator. It is said that under optimum conditions (between 0–2C or 32-36F), celery can be stored for up to seven weeks. Keep at higher temperat-ures and the inner stalks may continue growing. It is a great vegetable to have in stock for when you need a light snack to stave off hunger. It is also said to help people who have given up smoking and suddenly crave a cigarette.

Television chef and writer Sophie Grigson, from Oxford, points out that celery plays three important roles within the culinary theatre. Writing in: Vegetables (Collins £25), her definitive guide to delicious cooking and eating, she lists these roles as: l Raw: Celery can enjoyed for its exemplary, crisp and juicy flavour if eaten raw.

l Cooked: It can be surprisingly good if cooked, providing it is handled consider-ately and coaxed to give of its best.

l Background: Celery is an essential member of the chorus of vegetables that are used for stews, stocks, soups and sauces. Its ability to merge with other vegetables and herbs and heighten the overall flavour without dominating is one of its strengths.

Sophie’s Vegetables came out in 2006. It remains one of my favourite books. It’s a food book every cook should keep in their library.

Sophie reminds us that the original Waldorf salad, renowned for its glorious crunchy flavour — obtained by mixing apple and celery in equal parts, before dressing with mayonnaise — is a classic, but she adds her own magic twist to this dish by calling on lemon juice, shelled walnuts, tarragon leaves, and creamed horseradish to give it a real kick. Celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whitt-ingstall wrote that purchasing celery is a bit like obtaining a gym membership: we buy it — often in January — as we bask in the righteous glow of our own good intentions. We use it once, then forget about it for another year.

He remarks that the key difference is that gym membership really is a waste of time and money whereas celery is actually very useful.

Celery is thought to help you get a good night’s sleep because of the many vitamins, mineral salts and nutrients it contains, which also have a calming effect on the central nervous system. It is used as a hangover cure too.