Many varieties, fables and health benefits of garlic

We here at Garlio are naturally HUGE garlic fans! But did you know that there is an endless number of different varieties of garlic out there? Each one has it’s own looks, flavor profiles, and personality. We haven’t met them all, but we’d be happy to introduce you to some of our different garlic friends.

A bulbous - or as we like to say: “shapely” - perennial belonging to the lily family, along with onions and leeks, garlic is a very common ingredient in cooking all over the world. It’s an easy going plant that requires very little maintenance and is just as happy in your home garden as it is out in the wilds of almost any climate. It also happens to be one of the oldest cultivated plants in the world and people have been planting it - on purpose! - for over 5000 years.

History of Garlic

It’s unclear exactly where garlic originated from, but it’s assumed to have sprung to being somewhere in Middle Asia, possibly China, where it was prescribed as a remedy for everything from depression to correcting your yang. Summerians used it for it’s healing properties, and ancient Indian holy books mention it as a medicinal plant that cures a wide range of ailments. Ancient Egyptians placed garlic into tombs of Pharaohs as sacred offerings and fed it to slaves building the pyramids for strength and endurance. Both the Talmud and the Bible feature garlic as a necessary component of several important meals. During the Middle Ages people believed consuming garlic would ward off the Black Death, as well as a number of other lesser known maladies. In fact, it’s been the go-to preventative and curative remedy for almost every epidemic throughout history, including typhus, dysentery, cholera and the flu. There are few people who have weathered the winter-time sniffles without reaching for a hot bowl of chicken soup laced with lots and lots of garlic. All this is just to say that garlic has been a vital part of cuisine and medicine all over the world for a very long time. Our Garlio has very big shoes to fill!

Vampires

Contrary to popular opinion, the tale of vampires hating garlic is entirely fictitious. For years and years people believed that vampires and other evil spirits were put off by strong-smelling stuff, but it wasn’t until the theory started being circulated in 19^th century books and later movies that garlic was determined as the stinky talisman of choice. In fact, there are tales of vampires finding the odor of burning turmeric their ick factor, and not being bothered by garlic in the least. As to whether you believe vampires are real, well, we’re here to talk about garlic and leave the supernatural to the experts.

Mosquitos

People have believed that eating garlic helps keep mosquitoes at bay for a long time, despite a lack of any evidence whatsoever. Despite the many different anecdotes that might be shared, eating garlic may repel other humans, but unfortunately not mosquitoes. That is unless you get the pesky bug to actually eat the garlic directly. Turns out that mixing garlic with some sort of sugar as bait will actually kill off some mosquitoes, and if there are fewer of those little suckers flying about, the less likely you are to get bitten. That said, by all means, keep eating it! It’s delicious.

Modern Day Health Benefits

While many of the “miracle cure” claims attributed to garlic consumption are false or at least exaggerated, there is a wide variety of actual medical applications to the rotund wonder. Garlic contains a combination of flavonoids and sulfur molecules that act as all sorts of anti’s. It’s considered to offer antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral properties, but let’s not stop there! Garlic is also an excellent source of manganese, vitamin B6, vitamin C, and selenium, plus it helps your body absorb iron more efficiently. Talk about gilding the lily!

There have been studies to show that consumption of garlic will help protect you from the common cold and ingesting a few cloves either helped people avoid getting sick or decreased the severity of their symptoms. A steady presence of garlic in your diet will also help protect you from a build up of LDL cholesterol (the bad kind). It can lessen the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s and there are promising studies that are looking at the effect garlic has against specific types of cancer. While certainly not the miraculous answer to every malady, it does a lot more to keep the doctor away than an apple.

Garlic Varieties

There are two main groups that all garlic varieties fall into: hardneck and softneck. The hardneck types of garlic are the closest relatives to their wild ancestors and the name refers to the hard stalk that provides the core of each bulb. There are many different varieties of this type grown all over the world with many different size and flavor characteristics but it does take quite some time to mature before it can be harvested.

Softneck garlic was developed from hardneck garlic to mature faster, adapt better to a wider variety of climates, and possesses more layers of parchment around the cloves for longer storage. The pliability of these softer stalks also allows vendors to braid them together for beautiful displays. Because of these “improvements”, the garlic you’ll most likely encounter in your grocery store will be one of the softneck varieties, but you do end up trading some of the more nuanced flavor profiles for the sake of convenience.

Conclusion

We hardly have to tell you by this point how great garlic is and how good it is for you. It pairs beautifully with a wide range of different spices for amazing savory results, so make sure you pick some up on your next produce trip and start cooking! We’ll be here with Garlio, ready with recipes and ingredients to help you get started, should you need inspiration.