What is garlic?
First off, garlic is a vegetable. Its origins are believed to be central Asia. In Latin, Allium Sativum belongs to the onion family, thus its strong pungent taste and smell. You may also be familiar with some of garlic’s cousins: leeks, onions, chives and shallots… all potent and very healthy! Garlic health benefits include: lowering blood pressure (blood thinner) and cholesterol levels.
Garlic is a common addition to many dishes for all walks of life on all five continents. It grows under the ground and forms a bulb. It is usually planted about half finger deep under the soil (root facing down, pointy tip facing up) in the fall, around November. It will start to grow in April and be ready for harvest around August when the stock is half green, half browned.
The individual cloves that you peel from the garlic bulb are used to grow another bulb. A bulb of garlic has 6, 8, 10, 12 or more cloves. Garlic cloves can be skinned, peeled, chopped, sliced, minced, grated, roasted, fried, cooked, boiled or even eaten raw (although not advisable).
A garlic press will squeeze a lot of the juices out and this is usually the first thing to burn off in the pan. I use The Garlic ChopTM to mince my garlic. Once minced, the exposed garlic and it’s juices oxygenate and create a substance called Allicin. This is the stuff that makes garlic so pungent giving its many health benefits.
After being exposed for about 5min, maximum potency is reached but will decline in about an hour if left on the counter. Eating 2-3 cloves per day is reasonable, although it is not uncommon for some people eat bulbs of garlic daily.
Garlic is grown world wide, with China being the number one producer. World production has increased over the last decade. In 2008, the top ten garlic producing nations producing over 16million tonnes of garlic!
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