Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray

[vakkotaur]

Cel-Ray sounds like there would be radium in it or was once upon a time, but it's just a name for a celery soda. jmaynard brought me a bottle (from the same place that has the Walnetto) and I'm drinking it now. Jay doesn't think much of the soda as it tastes like celery, a flavor he does not appreciate.

I expected it to be, well, weird. The flavor is from "extract of celery seed" which makes sense. The flavor is rather concentrated in the seeds and it's how celery salt works. I tried it and found that I like it, rather to Jay's chagrin. The bottle cap is marked "kosher for passover" so this was made with proper sugar and not corn syrup.

Upon seeing that some consider Cel-Ray the ideal accompaniment to saltier foods such as pastrami, I find I now have a desire for something I will not get in Fairmont: a really good pastrami sandwich. And I'd need another bottle of Cel-Ray to go with it.

Comments

[jmaynard.livejournal.com]

I do indeed properly appreciate the flavor of celery: it's a yuk. The soda does a good job of reproducing that yuk.

[thecanuckguy.livejournal.com]

I don't think celery is a yuk, but I just can't begin to imagine the horrors of celery .. soda! That is so many kinds of wrong, it can't be more wrong if it was in the wrong place at the wrong time with an electric wrong machine!

(Celery is more of a neutral flavour, like water you can chew and is stringy. I've heard that celery is the only food with negative calories, as it takes more calories to chew it than it has in it ... )

[sheryl67.livejournal.com]

Alton Brown made a homemade version of this on his show. He he. :)

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Noted (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/celery-soda-recipe/index.html). I might have to ask for my mortar & pestle back from sistaur so I can grind the seeds well.

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

Long ago, at the Nosh, alevasholem, in West Des Moines, the proprietor (also alevasholem) warned me away from the Dr. Brown's celery soda. I've not seen it since, and every so often kick myself for not having tried it when I had the chance.

Celery doesn't seem to me to have much taste, even when I eat it by itself rather than using it as a substrate for something. Sometimes you happen across a bitter stalk, or one that tastes wretched, but on the whole, I like it. It's more for the crunch than anything else.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

If you like the flavor of celery, especially the non-salt part of celery salt (celery salt is used on Chicago style hot dogs) then you will probably like the soda. The flavor is from the celery seeds - which Alton Brown explains (I watched the Celery Man episode on youtube) is not mere seed but actually a tiny fruit.

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

P.S. Next time you happen to be in the Des Moines area, perhaps we should head to Maccabee's Kosher Deli.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

That seems a good idea indeed.