What's with the celery salad craze?

Plus, a look at why we love finely chopped salads and my version of the viral celery salad that even celery haters love.

There’s something beguiling about a salad in which the components are chopped so fine you can scoop them rather than stab them with a fork. And lately, the ones making the rounds on TikTok and Instagram are exactly that. Cowboy caviar. La Scala Salad. The viral one with celery, dates and parmesan dressing , which has gazillions of views on social media. They all have things in common: piles of raw veg sliced thinly, doused in dressing, often arranged on enormous platters and declared - usually in capital letters - the best salad ever.

The popularity of the celery salad has surpised me, I’ve got to admit. I mean, celery is fine but not a natural culinary scene-stealer. Outside of a Bloody Mary, sofritto or as a vehicle for hummus, it’s often just there. A bit stringy. A little bitter and aniseedy but also flavourless and watery. Lacking the sweetness of carrot, the full-flavoured bitterness of endive or the punch of radish. Celery does have its fans; American cookbooks from the early 20th century contain all manner of celery-centric recipes. And some people who definitely aren’t me relish a celery gratin. But does anyone rush to the shops for a celery fix? My family only eats the stuff when they don’t notice it’s there.

Which is why the viral celery salad is so interesting. Celery becomes delicious in this dish because it’s finely sliced and paired with parmesan, sticky dates and herbs. It becomes something other than its usual self. The deeply savoury dressing is a retort to its bitterness, as are the dates with their dark sweetness, while the fresh herbs add bright distraction. What you end up with is a salad that manages to put to bed celery’s perceived shortcomings. Even celery haters seem to like it. And there are some very scumptious looking versions around.

Flavour Nuggets

looks veryy yummy, as does

Natalie Chassay

’s spin.

It’s one of a family of popular chopped salad recipes that are easy to emulate or adapt. All the components are cut to a dainty size, seasoned well and slicked with a dressing that’s assertive and more like a sauce. There’s maximum crunch, minimum effort. And, often, these salads amenable, happy to accept whatever’s to hand: a tin of beans, whatever raw veg might be lurking, herbs, lemon juice, olive oil. They’re also, unlike many salads, much more than just worthy - you can scoop them up with crisps or corn chips if you fancy.

This kind of chopped salad zeal feels less like a trend than a natural progression. Bob Cobb was at it in 1937 when he cleared out his fridge and invented the salad that now bears his name: chicken, bacon, avocado, chives, egg, Roquefort, all neatly chopped and carefully arranged. A few decades earlier, the Waldorf salad had already landed in New York hotel dining rooms, a curious but enduring mix of apple, celery and mayo. Long before that, John Evelyn, a 17th-century British salad obsessive, laid out his case for raw vegetables in his 1699 book Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets. He drew the line at raw fruit in salads but was evangelical about leaves slicked in mustard, oil and vinegar.

In fact, Britain has long had a soft spot for salad, even if it lost its way for a time. Medieval herbalists recommended raw greens for health, while Georgian cooks liked a bit of cress and spring onion in the bowl. In the 1920s, salad recipes appeared with gorgeous things like chrysanthemums and shrimp. Then something faltered (rationing, probably) and we were faced with iceberg lettuce leaves, cucumber rounds and crunchy tomato wedges.

Now, thankfully, we’re back to abundance and the appeal of chopped salads is understandable. For one, cutting ingredients small means they have more surface area in contact with the dressing, so every mouthful has bags of flavour. It’s the same principle that makes a chopped sandwich filling much more satisfying and delicious than one with uneven striations of ingredients.

Visual appeal helps too. When everything’s chopped teeny, you get colour and texture in every spoonful. Chopped salad behaves itself well in a packed lunch; no soggy tomato chunks or limp leaves. And the odd surprise in every bite is a joy, like finding hidden treasure: the dazzle of a bit of pickled onion, a salty creamy punctuation point of feta, the welcome soft crunch of a pistachio.

There are certainly worse things to have gone viral.

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So here’s my version of that celery salad. In mine I’ve using blue cheese instead of parmesan in the dressing and I’ve incorporayed a couple of my favourite ingredients. It’s completely delicious.