Celery is part of the mirepoix trinity. Celery, carrots and onions , cooked low and slow in fat before adding to soup. It makes a sweet and savoury vegetable soup base.

Water Chestnuts are a fantastic substitute if you like the crunch.

Your opinion of celery vs water chestnuts is apparently the exact reverse of mine.

If the celery in soup is crunchy or even detectible as celery, the soup is being made wrong. It should melt into the dish along with the onions and garlic. The only part of the mirepoix/trinity that should possibly be detectable should be the bell pepper or carrot, and even then they should be very broken down and no longer have a distinct flavor by themselves.

As someone who disliked celery in the past, I still find it enriches vegetable soups a lot. And by now I actually like the taste of cooked(!) celery. So yes, I would say most people just like it.

I don't care for crunch in soup, but a like the celery flavor. I've added celery seeds to things I don't want actual celery in. I'll make stock with celery, onions, and carrots, and then strain them out.

I love celery and hate water chestnuts. Everyone's different.

When I make soup my wife always tells me I put too much celery. I never feel like it's enough.

Celery is genuinely one of my favorite parts of soups that use them. I LOVE the flavor or celery, and it is even better when it picks up the rest of the flavors of the dish.

To answer yours and the other questions about “why this ingredient”, the answer is very simple. Some people like it.

If you don’t, then don’t use it, problem solved.

Not sure if anyone answered the actual question but a reason celery is included is, in addition to being part of the traditional mirepoix, because the pectin content breaks down and results in a just so slightly thicker stock

It’s one of the those aromatic vegetables (along with carrots and onions, etc. ) that for most people (obviously not yourself) adds a background flavor that is not overpowering or offensive. It makes your soup taste like soup instead of salty chicken-water or bean-water. Its also fairly inexpensive compared to more meats and spices.

Yes, I genuinely enjoy the flavor of celery and distinctly miss the flavor when it’s absent. I grew up eating it raw with peanut butter, or melted/spreadable cheese. I grew up thinking it mostly tasted like water and was just a good vehicle for other flavors, but as my palate developed I noticed, and loved, the flavor more and more. In soups especially.

They say it takes something like twelve tries of a new flavor for your body to stop being afraid of it and actually enjoy it, and that most disliked foods are this kind of instinctual rejection. Maybe just try to force it a dozen times? I know that’s not pleasant advice, and I only recommend it if avoiding celery is something that will cause you life difficulties, such as in social situations.

I like celery, but am really interested to learn the answer here. The other ingredient that gets added to everything is onions. Fwiw I know the answer to that one: they're full of sugar. "First, soften some onions..." is basically a way of adding sweetness to food

I like celery. I add it when making stock (both ribs and leaves), chop up a few ribs and cook it in soup with carrots and onion, and I like to eat it raw as a snack.

I think you are an outlier in your palate for celery. Could you have an allergy or something? I like it fine, it tastes good and adds a really nice flavor to stock for soup. If you don't like that flavor just leave it out when you make it, the rest of us might think your dish is missing something but who cares, if the something it's missing is something you don't like?

My penultimate child loves "cooked salted celery" as she puts it - she will rescue it from the stock pot, and likes stir fry of just celery and beef.

Sensitivity varies, and I find celery to be a nice and subtle flavor like onions and carrots on soup. Love celery with peanut butter on it, although for the crunch as the peanut butter totally overpowers it.

Some people are more sensitive to different flavors.

Celery is used because it’s cheap…and it’s bitter balancing onions and other cheap stock items that tend to be sweet. A stock shouldn’t be sweet or bitter because it’s something you “work up”.

“Everybody” doesn’t use it tho. Some stocks are “garbage can” stocks, using whatever unservable scraps that come from food preparation…others are from ingredients purchased to make the stock like a Mirpoix (the most common stock base that uses celery).

There are lots of people like you that say celery ruins stock…there are many others that say bell peppers ruin stock…but then there are core stocks made from bell peppers.

Just do what tastes good.

What kind of weirdo doesn't like celery? Next you're going to tell me rhubarb is too tart, or you have to cook fennel.

I feel the same as you, my wife loves celery and puts it on everything but I feel like it subtracts flavors on most stuff. She eats raw celery all the time, I can maybe stand it with a lot of ranch next to some buffalo wings