Homemade

Cel-Ray Syrup

[Jeffrey] Before Coca-Cola or Pepsi, Dr. Brown's on the Lower East Side of New York began selling a seltzer flavored with celery seeds and sugar in 1869. Cel-Ray, as it was called, "provided a better counterpoint to the heavy, briny meats than sweeter, fruit-flavored sodas," wrote food historian Gil Marks, explaining how it became a fixture of the Jewish deli in the 1930s.

I find it ironic that sugary sodas, the scourge of nutritionists, began as healthful tonics. Seltzer was considered medicinal in nineteenth-century America, and in Philadelphia in 1807, a doctor sweetened the fizzy water to make it more pleasant to drink for his patients. I get it. I drink ginger ale when I have an upset stomach, and I prefer Alka-Seltzer to other pain relievers because the effervescence feels curative.

While I'm often content with plain seltzer, I find the infusion of familiar Ashkenazi flavors mixed into bubbly water to be extremely refreshing. These soda syrups and the drinks you can mix from them make a great party trick and are also a nice way to bring a bit of that Ashkenazi spirit into your everyday eating and drinking.

Make your own version of Cel-Ray to drink while eating a pastrami sandwich or a knish. Or use the syrup to make a Celery Collins for when you're sitting on the porch with friends. Note that this syrup is a rich simple syrup, meaning it has more sugar than water. As such, a little goes a long way.

 

Serving Size

Makes About 1 Cup Syrup

Ingredients

  • ½ cup water

  • 1 cup sugar

  • 1 ½ tablespoons celery seeds

Instructions

  1. In a small saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Stir in the sugar until it dissolves. Remove from the heat. Add the celery seeds, stir, cover, and let steep for 2 hours.

  2. Strain the syrup through a fine-mesh strainer. Pour into a jar and store in the fridge. To serve, mix 1½ tablespoons of the syrup with 6 to 8 ounces of chilled seltzer, or to taste. Serve over ice.


Excerpted from the book THE GEFILTE MANIFESTO by Jeffrey Yoskowitz & Liz Alpern. Copyright © 2016 by Gefilte Manifesto LLC. Reprinted with permission from Flatiron Books. All rights reserved. Photography by Lauren Volo.