Belgium versus United States (Celery Salts Compared)

A heated discussion took place last week about Celery Salt in this thread.

Originally posted by daknole
Why not just buy celery salt here in the U.S.?

1. Appearance: The Belgian stuff has larger salt crystals and a darker look. Also the celery pieces are not find ground and are actually a little bit thicker and don’t all look the same.
2. Smell, they’re pretty close but the American stuff did smell a bit more stale.
3. Taste, this was an easy one. Belgian celery salt simply tasted better as well. Good fresh taste, very present celery and lingered. It really complimented the meat.
4. Texture, America won this one because it appears they use less salt or just finer salt crystals and it means you don’t have that salt crunch when you eat it.

Originally posted by AdamChandler
A heated discussion took place last week about Celery Salt in this thread.

Originally posted by daknole
Why not just buy celery salt here in the U.S.?

ASKING THE HARD-HITTING QUESTIONS!!!

I knew it was my chance to compare both types so I hit my local grocery and grabbed store-brand stuff. Note, I did the tasting fully blind as my GF knew which one was which. I compared appearance, smell, taste and texture.

1. Appearance: The Belgian stuff has larger salt crystals and a darker look. Also the celery pieces are not find ground and are actually a little bit thicker and don’t all look the same.
2. Smell, they’re pretty close but the American stuff did smell a bit more stale.
3. Taste, this was an easy one. Belgian celery salt simply tasted better as well. Good fresh taste, very present celery and lingered. It really complimented the meat.
4. Texture, America won this one because it appears they use less salt or just finer salt crystals and it means you don’t have that salt crunch when you eat it.

Fun fact: Del haize, the largest grocery store in Belgium where I bought the celery salt owns Hannaford Grocery Stores in USA. You’d think they’d have a similar product but they don’t.

Now for some photos:

Really though, pretty cool that you followed up and delivered a report.

I wonder if it’s just an age and quality thing? I bet you could go to a specialty spice shop and get better stuff without leaving the comfort of ’Murica.

Why do we need photos of you to have this conversation?

On a positive note, you look like you’ve lost some weight though. Is that the reason for the pics?

And is that your bed next to your homemade kegerator in the last pic?

Not sure if I’d put either of them on already spiced salami, but oddly interesting read. Some in-depth autoreporting from the trenches of subjective homelife right there.

On loosely related notes:

A good slab of Oud Brugge with Tierentyn mosterd can work very well for Belgian tastings as well. Or cubes of young cumin cheese and pickled onions, like some bars offer in NL.

Delhaize has grown in my regard since they started offering Mikkeller at €1,99, half of the entry level import price here in Germany thanks to the Braufactum deal.

Here in Germany Aldi sells salted pistachios by their partly owned Trader Joe’s brand Farmer, which work very well with German styles and lighter ales. Just hard to stop once you’ve opened a bag..

If you have a food processor/spice grinder/etc and want fresh celery salt, it’s as easy as celery seeds + salt. Mainly a 1:1 ratio but you can mess with that if you’d like. I like a bit of grit in finishing salt so I use a course salt that comes out much thicker than what you have posted in the pics. A bit of rice in the jar if you have leftovers helps retain freshness.

Are the photos really copyrighted?

Originally posted by DietPepsican
If you have a food processor/spice grinder/etc and want fresh celery salt, it’s as easy as celery seeds + salt. Mainly a 1:1 ratio but you can mess with that if you’d like. I like a bit of grit in finishing salt so I use a course salt that comes out much thicker than what you have posted in the pics. A bit of rice in the jar if you have leftovers helps retain freshness.

Originally posted by bartlebier
... Here in Germany Aldi sells salted pistachios by their partly owned Trader Joe’s brand Farmer, which work very well with German styles and lighter ales. Just hard to stop once you’ve opened a bag..

My findings are that the cheaper the Belgian celery salt the better. Kruidvat is the classic, with the orange plastic cap. The Delhaize snassy rectangular shaker with celery salt as pictured above is also very good. I buy a bunch of these everytime I’m in Belgium to stay on the safe side, here in Sweden most stores don’t even carry celery salt and the few that provide are selling inferior stuff.

Why are you drinking wine in the pics and not beer?