The Books of Thyme, Mint, Lavender, Rosemary, Parsley, Basil, Chilli, and Garlic (1994 HarperCollins)...may be out of print An extract:Garlic (Allium sativum) might be described as a pungent bulbous cultivated perennial - but this definition in no way gives even a hint of the magic and allure of garlic. Like many people, my early years were spent garlicless. My love affair with garlic started in my early twenties when former peasant dishes became high cuisine - and a widening interest in herbal remedies brought back a lot of the lore of our great grandparents. This seems to have been the fate of garlic - alternately loved and abandoned for thousands of years. Garlic is traditionally a peasant spice and remedy. In Ancient Egypt it was fed to labourers building the pyramids to give them strength (and possibly increased resistance to waterborne diseases); it was sacrificed to the Ancient Egyptian gods (garlic cloves were found in the tomb of Tutankhamen dating from around 1352 BC) and Egyptian husbands of the same era were said to chew garlic on the way home from their mistresses so their wives would not suspect they'd engaged in dalliance. Roman and Greek warriors ate garlic to give them strength and courage, and it was an important part of the stores of military triremes. In Ancient Greece athletes chewed garlic before the Olympic games to give them vitality and endurance (and lovers ate it to give them endurance of another kind). The Romans applied a plaster of crushed garlic to cure haemorrhoids; and there is a Muslim legend that when Satan stepped out of the Garden of Eden garlic sprang up under his left foot. The prophet Mohammed is said to have advised that garlic be applied to the bites of vipers or the sting of a scorpion, and in many parts of the world garlic is still applied to relieve the effect of venom. Garlic was held to be a sacred herb ('moly') with magic healing properties by European gypsies. Garlic was not so well regarded in some aristocratic circles. The Roman patrician Virgil recommended it as a food for labourers to give them strength for the harvest. The priestess Medea is said to have smeared her lover Jason (a hero of ancient Greece) with garlic to repel her father's savage bulls. Presumably they were aristocratic bulls and not enamoured of peasant smells. In 1368 King Alphonso of Castile instituted a new order of knights - one of the prerequisites being that any member who had eaten garlic should not come into the King's presence for a month. Garlic originated - and still grows wild - in central Asia around Uzbekhistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, in the Altaic Mountains of Siberia and in the Ural Mountains near the Caspian Sea. (Italian chefs however may insist it originated in Sicily, and occasional Indian cooks claim it as theirs too). Garlic has been domesticated in China for at least 5,000 years, in the Middle East for at least 4,000 years and it is mentioned in the earliest Indian Vedic writings. The Romans brought garlic to much of northern Europe and Columbus, reversing the trend to take New World plants back to the Old, took garlic to what is now the Dominican Republic. From there garlic eating spread across South and Central America. Garlic has a similarly long medical history. The Codex Exelser, an Egyptian medical papyrus from about 1500 BC, lists 22 garlic remedies for heart problems, worms and as a general tonic. According to Pliny the Ancient Eygptians used garlic to repel scorpions and serpents and he and Dioscorides valued it as a treatment for asthma, worms and as a tonic and diuretic. In the Middle Ages garlic was esteemed as a cure for leprosy and deafness (and it may in fact have helped skin conditions that resembled leprosy and some hearing problems). It was believed that garlic 'neutralised foul air' and so prevented pestilence. Medieval doctors wore masks stuffed with garlic to save them from the plague and during the Great Plague garlic cost more than its weight in gold in London. Garlic was one of the ingredients in the Four Thieves Vinegar, used by Marseilles grave robbers in the 1722 plague to give them resistance to infection from the corpses they robbed. The seventeenth century farrier Gervase Markham fed horses that had nightmares balls of garlic, liquorice and aniseed. In Victorian England bruised garlic cloves were applied to the chests of consumptive children, or bound to the feet to ease inflammation of the brain. Even as late as World War 1 garlic juice was still applied to wounds as an antiseptic by the British Army (and probably quite effective it was too). Why Garlic Stinks Garlic's aroma is excreted via the lungs and skin - which is why your breath and sweat may smell of garlic. How to Stop Garlic Smelling How to Stop Your Breath Smelling of Garlic It has also been claimed that eating lots of garlic reduces the smell - that it is only the occasional garlic binger who gets smelly breath. This is a remedy for garlic addicts. It is mostly raw garlic in salads or semi-raw garlic in garlic bread however that flavours the breath - cooked garlic is much sweeter and less pungent. Perhaps the final remedy is just encourage everyone to eat a lot of garlic so no one notices the odour any more. How to Stop Your hands Smelling of Garlic How to stop Your Fridge Smelling of Garlic Garlic and Animals Large amounts of garlic (both the leaves and bulbs) have been fed to stock to both treat them for worms and to stop them getting infested. Garlic is also fed to animals as a general tonic, to ease mastitis, to increase the performance of stallions and bulls and to help fevers and other illnesses - recipes appear in the section on medicinal garlic as these garlic remedies can also be used for many animals. Garlic is usually fed to stock chopped up in bran and moistened with molasses to disguise the taste - animals are fonder of the leaves than the strong but more medicinally active cloves. Garlic and Fleas and Ticks. Garlic Paste for Scaly Leg on Hens |