This section is from the book "Cooking Vegetables. Practical American Cookery", by Jules Arthur Harder. Also available from Amazon: The Physiology Of Taste.
Alisandre. Smyrnenkraut.
No. 1. - Is a hardy biennial plant, cultivated for its leaf stalks, which, after being blanched are used as a salad. In habit and foliage it resembles the Celery somewhat. It has a pleasant aromatic taste and odor.
No. 2. - It is raised from seed annually, in light, deep loam, in drills four feet apart, covering its seeds an inch deep. When three inches high thin to ten inches apart; when well advanced earth up about the stems gradually, same as for Celery, like which they are also gathered for use and preserved during winter.
No. 3. - A variety, originally from Italy, of superior quality It blanches better and is more crisp and tender, and not so harshly flavored. The stems are about three feet high.
 
Continue to: