Allium sativum, the most powerfully flavoured member of the onion family, and an indispensable ingredient in many cuisines and dishes. Its cloves, of which a bulb contains six to more than two dozen, have little smell when whole but release a notoriously strong one when crushed. The question whether it is socially acceptable for people to give off this smell, as they do when they have eaten garlic, has been controversial in various parts of the world since the beginning of historical times.
Garlic's English name is partly from ‘gar’ meaning spear (cf garfish), referring to the spearlike leaves. The second syllable is from ‘leac’, leek.
Several species of wild garlic exist, and the cultivated species may have evolved from one of these in C. Asia and the E. Mediterranean region. De Candolle (1886) points to the very wide variation in common names as evidence that the plant has been familiar in most regions of the Old World for a very long time. It has been known in China since antiquity, and was an important article of diet in ancient Egypt and in classical Greece and Rome.
Garlic, already developed to a form hardly distinguishable from that we know today, is commonly found in Egyptian tombs, sometimes left as an offering like other items of food, sometimes playing a role in mummification. The Israelites, as they set off on their exodus, looked back with longing at the garlic of Egypt (Numbers 11: 5).
Garlic was an important vegetable to Greeks and Romans. Theophrastus (c.300 bc) remarked that several kinds were grown; and a section of the market at Athens was known simply as ta skoroda (the garlic). It was considered a strengthening food, ideal for workers, soldiers, and oarsmen, and often prescribed by dietitians; but some upper-class voices were raised against its smell. The Roman poet Horace wrote of ‘garlic, more harmful than hemlock’, that could drive one's lover to refuse a kiss and to retreat to the far side of the bed. It may be for this reason that garlic appears only twice in the recipes of Apicius, one of these being for invalid food.
So far as the ancient civilizations are concerned, one could say that in general garlic was esteemed for its medicinal qualities, and eaten by the populace; but often disdained by the aristocracies and even the subject of taboos by priests.
Although garlic has been used therapeutically for thousands of years, its efficacy has been little understood until quite recent times. Its ‘power to cure or alleviate’ was attributed, in great part, to ‘magic’.
In the 1940s scientists found that a substance in garlic called alliin was the ‘parent’ compound that must be broken down before antimicrobial effects are possible, and before the characteristic odour of garlic is evident. This catalytic breakdown is accomplished with the enzyme allinase, which is also naturally present in garlic. Alexandra Hicks (1986) wrote:
Simply stated, when a clove of garlic is cut or crushed, its extracellular membrane separates into sections. This enables an enzyme called allinase to come in contact and combine with the precursor or substrate alliin to form allicin, which contains the odoriferous constituent of garlic.
(A similar process takes place in an onion when it is cut. The cut allows an enzyme already present in the onion to start working, and it brings out the tear-producing element of onions.)
This is not all. The molecules released by these means are highly reactive, changing of their own accord into other organic compounds (always involving sulphur), which then in turn undergo further transformations.
Out of all this complex and sequential activity come the molecules which have the various medicinal qualities for which garlic is famed, including antibacterial, antifungal, and anti-thrombotic (preventing blood from clotting, important in the context of heart problems, for example). A wealth of scientific information on these and related matters has been provided by Koch and Lawson (1996), whose bibliography of over 2,000 items testifies to the amount of interest in and work on the subject.
Generally, garlic is a food rich in minerals, containing within the chemical complexity of its primary minerals a relatively high amount of sulphur compounds (allyl sulphides). These sulphur compounds occur in greater amounts in the genus Allium than in other vegetables; and they are higher in garlic than in its relations such as leeks, onions, etc. And it is these sulphur compounds which underlie the processes described above.
In addition garlic contains trace minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, iron; and is rich in vitamins B1 and C.
Generally, it would be fair to say that the health-giving properties of garlic are well attested and have probably not yet been fully explored.
These properties doubtless depend to some extent on the variety or cultivar being used. These differ in various parts of the world, e.g. there are marked contrasts between French and Californian varieties. California Early is the white garlic most commonly seen in the US markets, although California Late is a better keeper (it will keep from one harvest to the next). Silverskin is another very fine white garlic. Carpathian is well known in C. Europe. The name Italian is loosely used of small, strongly flavoured varieties, and among these Italian Red is favoured by connoisseurs. A plethora of varieties, many of local fame only, thrives in the huge area extending from the Mediterranean to E. Asia. See also elephant garlic; hedge garlic.
Well-known garlic sauces or similar preparations in the Mediterranean region include aïoli, pesto, skorthalia, persillade, and also gremolada, the lemon, parsley, and garlic mixture traditionally sprinkled on Osso bucco (see veal). Green garlic, which is the immature plant, has gained ground as an ingredient in recent years. In the Balkans and Romania, they use a black-skinned variety as their major source of green garlic, employing it as one might a spring onion.
In Asia, garlic is important in cooking, but there seem to be no parallels to the special Mediterranean dishes which are centred on garlic; for Asians garlic is just something which is used all the time to add flavour to savoury dishes, with no special fanfare attending it. Exceptions to its general popularity occur, whether partial (as in Iran, where use is relatively rare and light) or total (as among strict Buddhists, some Hindu Brahmins, and the Jains, for whom the onion family is forbidden—see Jains and food; shallot). For garlic chives, see chives.
To say that by the end of the 20th century garlic had conquered the world would be something of an exaggeration. There are still ethnic and cultural groups (some in Britain and N. America, for example) who view it with dislike and distrust or who simply do not use it. But it is coming close to complete penetration of the kitchens of the world. And, if folklore is correct, its spread must be bringing ever closer the extinction of the vampire. For folkloric and light-hearted aspects of the subject, often emanating from California, see L. J. Harris (1980, 1986).
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Harris, Lloyd J. (1980), The Book of Garlic, Los Angeles: Panjandrum/Aris Books.
Harris, Marvin (1986), Good to Eat, London: Allen & Unwin.
Hicks, Alexandra (1986), ‘The Mystique of Garlic’, in Cookery: Science, Lore and Books, Oxford Symposium on Food History 1984 and 1985, London: Prospect Books.
Koch, H., and Lawson, L. (eds) (1996), Garlic, Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins.
