Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear peels.
Garlic: The savoury superhero everyone knows and many hate
[This piece was originally published on 16 Jan 2025]
If I look back at the food I grew up eating, garlic was always there. Hidden in some tomatoey sauce one day, paired with parsley like two peas in a pod on another, the presence of garlic was loud and quiet at the same time. Its existence taken for granted yet never cherished.
Somehow, garlic was seen as something necessary yet something to run away from at the same time. Something that would add fragrance - mostly to oily things - but definitely something not to chew or eat in chunks.
It wasn’t just my family. During large gatherings with relatives or friends, I remember someone always being appointed to scavenge (and throw in the bin) lost cloves - always very few in quantity - from big pots of delicious stews and pastas as if they were precious gems that nobody was supposed to touch.
My relationship with garlic was neutral at best. It was coated in a mix of ancient witchcraft tales still told by grandmas and aunties sitting by the side roads in small towns, and the awareness that garlic could add richness and a special kind of aroma to different foods.
It wasn’t until I discovered the charms of Chinese and Korean cooking that I learnt how to appreciate garlic’s full potential. It was an innocent discovery. One that - without me even realising - inadvertently changed my way of cooking for good.
So what’s the deal with garlic anyways? Now a staple in many cuisines around the world, garlic’s origins are generally traced back to Central Asia. Evidence shows that it was used in ancient Egypt and China (already 4000 years ago or so!) for its culinary and medicinal properties alike. Although nowadays often used as a spice - especially in its powdered form - garlic is technically a vegetable. And quite a peculiar one, if anything.
Garlic has a strong odour. Several varieties exist around the world all presenting slightly different colours (most commonly white, red and black), flavour profiles, hardness and properties. It is an incredibly versatile ingredient. It can be used fresh, minced, fried, in powder, as confit, infused…you name it. There is some chemistry at play too. When cooked it acquires a certain sweetness. Its raw flavour however is always pungent, almost spicy. So much so that many - including the British royal family which prohibits its consumption within their palaces - find its aftertaste unpleasant.
The history of garlic is tangled between folklore myths, migration and class struggles. Still forbidden for consumption for Buddhist monks, garlic has had many different roles throughout history. Back in medieval Europe, garlic bulbs were used as amulets against witches and supernatural beings. Garlic was something that was deeply rooted in mystery and superstition and the belief that it had a purifying power of some sort. As such, it was also something that generally had dark or low connotations. Shakespeare, for instance, associated garlic with low class workers and foreigners.
Most notable, perhaps, is garlic’s role in fending off vampires in gothic novels. As silly as it may sound, there may have actually been some scientific links beyond folklore. As it turns out, there is a very rare group of medical conditions called porphyria. Triggered by an allergy to sulfur (which garlic contains more than any other vegetable!), this condition causes the body to struggle with the production of heme, a molecule needed to carry oxygen in the blood. This can result in painful and long-lasting attacks of vomiting - potentially fatal - skin redness and even reddish colour urine. You see the parallels now, don’t you?
To my surprise, there is also a registered phobia of garlic. Which - to be fair - should have not really been that shocking as there is a phobia for pretty much anything. Named alliumphobia, this (disproportionate as per its definition) fear does not have a chemical basis. It is - as the name suggests - an irrational fear of allium, a group of flowering plants that include garlic, onion and shallots. Although its origins might be nebulous and perhaps linked again to folklore more than anything else, those affected by it can find the sight or smell of garlic incredibly distressing. Records suggest that, for instance, many British colonisers that ventured to Australia suffered from it. This could explain the long-lasting reluctance to include any type of garlic in English language recipe books and guides of that time.
Myths aside, it has for a while been established that consuming garlic does have some health benefits (for most people at least). It is not just about its flavour. Ancient civilisations were right; I mean, they usually are. From potentially increasing one’s protection against the common cold to helping with cholesterol and blood pressure levels, garlic is rich in natural compounds that can benefit the body. It is what many would call a superfood. That does not mean it will restore your health’s decline. It ain’t that easy. Yet, that hasn’t stopped people from taking this piece of knowledge a little too literally. Believe it or not, it is now a trend for office workers in East Asia to frequently get a garlic IV drip to relieve their fatigue.
People are now effectively obsessed with garlic but it was not always like that. Throughout most of the twentieth century, garlic remained a working class and region specific ingredient. Japanese people have notoriously always opposed garlic’s smell and deemed it as a stigmatising feature of Korean and Chinese cooking alike. In the UK, except for a stint during the Victorian era where well-off Brits got obsessed with French cuisine, garlic did not receive much love either. Surprisingly, even Queen Victoria's fascination with Indian cooking did not change mainstream attitudes within the British Isles. As perfectly illustrated in the case of North America or even Australia - where garlic was only introduced in the 1800s - its consumption was again mostly reserved to working class migrants. It was something very cheap and easy to grow, and something that only European and Asian migrants were accustomed with. Although heavily discriminated against, people coming from Greece, Italy and China were amongst the most garlic loving bunch. And the most entrepreneurial ones too. Over time, their taverns selling affordable home-cooked dishes popular in the homelands opened up to the general public. Others could try their garlicky dishes.
It wasn’t until the 1980s that garlic really started gaining momentum. As cooking transitioned from a survival trade to a craft, and travel abroad increased, garlic started becoming a widespread thing. It was no longer just a working class item. Garlic became a (white, english-speaking) middle-class commodity beyond borders. While it can be argued that the consumption of other communities’ foods might have started - as in some cases continue to exist - as an act of power and societal objectification (e.g. take the idea that migrant foods are perceived by many as something cheap), garlic rises above other ingredients for its being cross-cultural from the start. It is (also) through garlic that - dare I say it - migrants around the world have, without knowing, collectively influenced and diversified cuisines and food cultures, and continue to do so.
Whether you love it or hate it (or sit somewhere in between), garlic is simply one of a kind. It is an ingredient that can make or break a dish. From flavoured crisps to health supplements, it is hard to find people in urban environments that do not know about it or have not tried it. Global foodways have drastically changed and garlic is one magical ingredient that sits front and centre withstanding time. Garlic is a rebel and a hero at the same time. It is a polarising, stinky, annoyingly to prep ingredient that somehow created its own set of rules in the kitchen and beyond. And I just love that about it.