Alexanders ✦

Maceron

What it is

Rome carried it north as a pot-herb and until the seventeenth century it was one of the commonest plants in a British kitchen garden, before self-blanching celery — sweeter, milder, less work — pushed it out entirely. Its genus name comes from smyrna, myrrh: the resin is in the smell, and celery has none of it.

In the kitchen

Peel the stems like rhubarb before cooking — most of the bitterness sits in the skin — then braise ten minutes in butter and stock. The unopened flower buds are the best of the plant: sixty seconds in boiling water, dressed warm.

Goes with

Butter Lemon Cream Egg Anchovy Potato

In season alongside

Fuki-no-tō (butterbur flower bud) Mugwort Wild fennel fronds Ashitaba Bagnoli truffle Bog myrtle

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