Selderijsalade (Dutch Celeriac Salad)

In my grandmother's second notebook, the one she rebuilt after de Ramp, the great flood, the party salads lived in the back pages. Not because they were unimportant. Because they were reliable. Birthdays, New Year visits, church halls, a table pulled a little too close to the wall so everyone could pass behind the chairs: there would be bread rolls, butter, eiersalade (egg salad), zalmsalade (salmon salad), and this pale, sharp selderijsalade, cool from the refrigerator and quietly doing its work.

But let me tell you a secret. The name already tells you less than you think. Selderij can mean the green stalks, the leaf, or the root, but this salad belongs to knolselderij, literally tuber celery, celeriac: the rough winter root that looks like it was pulled from a canal bank and then apologised for itself. Do not be fooled. Under that hairy skin is celery made dense and sweet, with a peppery edge that mayonnaise needs more than mayonnaise knows.

There is no cooking here, only the old Dutch talent for making something useful wait gracefully. Shred the celeriac fine, touch it immediately with lemon and salt, and you do two things at once: you keep it pale and you soften the raw root without boiling away its bite. Make the dressing sharper than you think sensible, because the celeriac will calm it down. Then chill it. Hou het altijd simpel, always keep it simple. A cold buffet dish should be ready before the guests take off their coats.