Compare prices for fresh celery across Edmonton retailers.
Celery is a stalk vegetable rather than a fruit, so it does no ripening after harvest — there is no underripe head to bring around at home, and the crispness in the store is the best it will be. Selection is therefore the whole task, and it is the same whether the celery is for tonight or for later in the week. Choose a bunch that is firm and tightly packed, with straight, upright stalks of an even pale-to-medium green and leaf ends that look fresh and lively rather than wilted or yellowing. The stalks should be thick, compact, and only gently curved; pass over heads that are badly bowed, twisted, split, or cracked, or that carry a tall pale shoot pushing up through the centre, which is a seedstalk and a sign the plant has begun to go woody. A fresh stalk gives a clean, crisp snap when you bend it, while one that bends limply without breaking is already on its way down.
Because the quality is set at purchase, getting good celery later in the week is about cold storage, not ripening. Refrigerate the head in the crisper drawer at high humidity and as cold as the fridge runs without freezing, where it will hold for roughly two weeks; wrapping the whole bunch snugly in aluminum foil before it goes in keeps it crisp noticeably longer, often three to four weeks, because the foil holds in moisture while letting ethylene escape. Celery that has merely gone a little limp but is otherwise sound is not lost: stand the cut stalks upright in a glass of cold water, or submerge them in ice water, for an hour or so and they will draw the water back up and firm noticeably.
Celery is past its useful window when the stalks turn rubbery and bend without snapping, when the centre goes hollow, spongy, or woody (pithiness, a normal sign of over-maturity that advances as the bunch sits), or when you see soft, slimy, or watery patches, rusty-brown streaking along the ribs, or a blackened, decayed core at the base. Yellowing, wilted leaves and a strong, bitter, off smell are also cues to discard it. One Edmonton-specific caution: celery is imported for much of the year and is almost entirely water, so a bunch left in a freezing vehicle in winter suffers freeze damage — the ice crystals rupture the cells, and it thaws back limp, translucent, and waterlogged rather than crisp — so bring it indoors promptly in cold weather and keep it clear of the coldest, freeze-prone corners of the fridge.
Sources: