- guardian.co.uk, Sunday April 14 2002 16.33 BST
- The Observer, Sunday April 14 2002
I am not now, nor have ever been, what one might describe as a fussy eater, yet faced with one perfectly ordinary high street foodstuff my reaction is toxically phobic. Indeed, I have been known to leave a room abruptly to avoid gagging at the sight of what is to my mind the most satanic of vegetables: the twisted, ugly, downright evil stick of inanimate cellulose that is celery.
For all sorts of entirely irrational reasons, absolutely everything about celery horrifies me. It has no redeeming qualities at all (not even that potentially fetching shade of Prada-greenness), and therefore exists merely to torment and disturb. For me, celery is nothing short of a living vegetable hell for which I dream of coming up with an uncompromising and very extreme final solution: a permanent global purging.
I wasn't, to my knowledge, ever beaten with sticks of the stuff in early childhood (though if loved ones have anything they'd like to declare it would at least provide a rational explanation). Nor did my first love reveal his terrible infidelity with my best friend in the summer of 1982 as he supped on a giant celery-festooned Bloody Mary. In short, there is no reason why I should loathe celery, but I do.
First things first: the shape upsets me greatly - an entirely unnatural-looking ridged semi-circular tube inexplicably laced with string. Surely this is the Devil's Own Dental Floss, used by Lucifer to remove stubborn tooth-sticking foodstuffs. If not, then precisely what is its purpose?
Then there is the (apparently) rather jolly, leafy foliage that sprouts so distractingly from the top of the tubes. This appears to provide a little light, even pleasantly chaotic, relief to the uncompromising rigidity of the main body of the vegetable, but surely it simply acts to obscure a darker, hidden purpose. And finally there is the sheer blind terror induced by that otherwordly crunch. It is, I think, no coincidence that while recording film soundtracks, the Foley artists replicate the sound of a breaking bone with a freshly-snapped stick of celery. Go on, try it...alone, perhaps, on a rain-lashed winter's night in a room lit by a single half-spent guttering candle... and see how you like that, you sick celery sorts.
Though the same room is still rarely big enough for the both of us, I have, over the years, worked hard at overcoming my fear of unscheduled celery sightings, while knowing I can never have any kind of meaningful relationship with the sort of people who casually display bloody great jugs of the stuff on summer buffet tables. These days, the most disturbing celery-related event is invariably discovering the vegetable in places where it really has no right to turn up. If I tell you it's been the best part of three years since I've eaten in the Observer canteen, I think you'll have some idea as to why that is. I mean, what sick soul ever thought a double-double-decaff celeryccino could make a perfect start to the working day?
