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GARLIC ROOTS

e all know that for plants to flourish, they need a few key resources like water, sunlight and air. For communities to

But the garlic family tree doesn’t stop there. Thanks to garlic’s wide-ranging travels, ca- pacity to thrive in pretty much any growing conditions and ability to reproduce both sexually and asexually, there are now 10 types of garlic within the two subspecies, ac- cording to the USDA, and over 450 unique cultivars therein from around the world. Several factors like rainfall, altitude and overwintering conditions help to form garlic that is best suited to certain regions. Like wine grapes and tomatoes, this vast variety offers the kind of agricultural and culinary journey that excites food enthusiasts as well as fans of culture and agriculture. There’s the large, violet-and-porcelain cloves of Mexican Pur- ple garlic and the easy-to-store Creole Red, which grows best in warmer climates. Vekak garlic, part of the “purple stripe” family, has a warmth that lends itself to roasting, while Georgian Fire garlic—from the Republic of Georgia—has spicy, teardrop-shaped bulbs renowned for their anti-inflammatory prop- erties. If any restaurant ever makes a “garlics of the world” tasting menu, go ahead and sign me up. Garlic is also a fine friend to many other crops, often pulling double-duty as an unof- ficial guardian of the soil as it grows, scaring off bugs and blight with its very presence. If you’re growing garlic this year, consider us- ing this companion planting method to the benefit of your entire backyard ecosystem. “‘Companion planting’ is the practice of planting certain crops in proximity to each other to optimize pest control, pollination and overall health. Garlic repels aphids, cabbage worms, slugs and other pests, mak- ing it a beneficial companion to...lettuce, spinach, potatoes, eggplant, tomatoes, pep- pers, cabbage and broccoli,” writes Robin Cherry in her 2014 book, Garlic: An Edible Biography . “Garlic is a good companion to all fruit trees because its aroma repels cat- erpillars, mites and Japanese beetles...while also [attracting] good insects by providing shelter, pollen and nectar.” Beyond the backyard and on a much grander scale, China is the world’s largest producer of garlic today, making up 80% of total global cultivation, while California ac- counts for 90% of garlic growers in the Unit- ed States. If you want to go really deep into trying different off-the-grid garlic varietals, true wild garlic still grows in the hills and

By Sarah Baird

grow and thrive, though, they require a few more foundational elements: relationships, shared bits of culture and history, and—yes— culinary touchstones. For millions of people across the world, garlic is one of those revered pieces of lo- cal fiber, having been integrated into daily life through meals, medicine, agriculture and even pop culture for centuries. And whether you’re examining the Korean myth that the country was founded by 20 cloves of garlic and a bear woman, or how garlic has long been treated as Russia’s third doctor (behind bathhouses and vodka), it becomes strik- ingly clear that garlic is so much more than a mealtime ingredient. GARLIC IN AGRICULTURE Garlic is one of the oldest cultivated crops in the world, with records indicating that this edible, medicinal bulb’s agricultural origin story begins in Central Asia some 5,000 years ago. But thanks to the hardiness of its cloves—and its ability to be pulled from the ground, cured, transported, then successfully replanted with ease—it didn’t stay isolated in Central Asia for long. Instead, garlic quickly became a plant well-known to practi- cally every ancient civilization from India to Greece to the Vikings. Its far-reaching spread as a major crop commodity mirrors human migration patterns over thousands of years. Garlic is not a monolith, though: It’s a col- orful, bountiful and diverse crop with plenty of varieties across different ecosystems. The two major subspecies for garlic are “hard- neck” and “softneck,” terms coined by ag- riculturalist Ron England in the early 1990s. Hardneck garlic typically has more complex, pungent flavors than softneck and is identi- fied by its tall, flowering stem known as a scape, which can be eaten as a seasonal vegetable and planted to propagate new garlic bulbs. Softneck garlic, which is more commonly found on American tables and can be easily stored for long periods, has far more cloves than its hardneck cousins (typi- cally between eight and 20) and lacks the hardneck’s signature stalk.

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