This is a recipe for a cold and rainy day when you have nothing better to do but force the most notoriously fibrous of vegetables through a sieve. You will then mix it with cream and salty stock and annihilate that whole negative calorie thing that celery is famous for.
There was a time before celery was the vegetable of misery, and it made its way into pot pies, chicken salads, and in this case into stock which, in a fiber-free double-whammy, goes back into this soup containing more celery. Well this was sort of a pain in the @%$ to make. Tasty but I’m not sure if it was worth the effort. If I had a more sturdy strainer maybe I’d reconsider. I also would have made this with more celery. Mrs. Shriver is very vague about the amount of celery to use despite being very particular about other things. For instance, a double-boiler was called for. I ignored this – double-boilers were often necessary for hearth cooking but hardly so on my gas range.Sadly I did not find much information on Mrs. Shriver. Instead, I read all about her husband, as is often the case with the misseses of “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland.”
James Alexis Shriver was a passionate historian. We apparently have him to thank for a lot of the first Maryland historical markets, including many of the “George Washington ___ here” variety.
J. Alexis Shriver installing the ‘John Brown’ marker in 1938
“James Alexis Shriver was born in 1872. A Baltimore resident during his early years, Shriver moved to near Joppa in Harford County after graduating from Cornell in the early 1890’s. Born of a wealthy and well-known Maryland family… Just after the turn of the century, Shriver became very active in the Harford County Historical Society…. He caused a number of cast iron road markers to be raised along the highways and byways of the state. Most were concerning with Washington’s well-documented journeys, and all were unveiled with as much ceremony as could be gotten from the situation.” – MDHS
Recipe:
- celery
- 1 pint chicken or veal stock
- I Tb butter
- 2 Tb flour
- black pepper
- salt
- 1 Cup cream
Boil celery until soft, then press through a sieve. Discard the fiber. In a pot over medium heat, add the celery to the stock. Rub a tablespoonful of butter into two tablespoonfuls of flour, and add to soup to thicken. Season with pepper and salt, and strain again so the soup will be perfectly smooth. Return to low heat and add cream.
Recipe adapted from Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland