Digging into the history of celery in cans in Contra Costa

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY—“Contra Costa County is famed for its celery, the white variety which thrives on the Delta land,” according to an article transcribed by the Genealogy Trails History Group from F.J. Hulaniski’s 1917 “The History of Contra Costa County.”

In Volume 2 of her “Days Gone By” series, Nilda Rego reported that the California Fruit Canner’s Association Cannery produced canned celery in 1911. The title of her story is: “When the Smell of Cocktail Sauce Hung in the Air.”

Canneries used to be located on the Antioch shore along with the Santa Fe Packing Shed, but it’s unclear if the facilities were ever used to can celery.

Antioch’s canneries offered seasonal work, and the workers were mostly women. “The Cannery Lady” monument honors their contributions. The bronze statue by Elizabeth MacQueen stands on West First Street near the Amtrak Station. At her feet are empty cans. On her arm she carries a tray with tomatoes and asparagus but not celery, neither white nor green.

Not a main ingredient

Celery is often an ingredient in canned products, though not the main ingredient. A search for canned celery on the Internet came up with cans of dehydrated celery, cream of celery soup, celery seed, celery tonic and celeriac, which is celery root. Celery extract in a gel is used as a mosquito repellant. The extract is thought to lower blood sugar in prediabetes, act as a sleeping sedative and as a remedy for the gout.

Searching for a recipe for canning celery led to an article with only two suggestions: freeze or dehydrate/roast. Freezing was not available to the canneries in the early 1900s, and dehydration of foods did not become a widely used commercial process until World War II.

When all else fails, try YouTube – which details of the process of canning celery in glass jars. You are cautioned to de-bubble. The contents of the jars are used in soups, stews and sauces. But jars are not cans.

In short, no evidence has been found for canning celery in cans. Perhaps the celery went to the packing shed and not the cannery, where it was loaded into Santa Fe Railroad refrigerator cars for shipment to all parts of the country.  If you have any information about celery being canned here, please let us know.

A History Note is presented by the Contra Costa County History Center, 724 Escobar St., Martinez, using materials from the society’s collections. The History Center is closed due to the coronavirus. Visit cocohistory.org or join us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cocohistory.