JOANNA BLYTHMAN

When people say they don’t like garlic, it may just be because they don’t appreciate its subtleties

Treat garlic with the respect it deserves and you’ll soon learn to love it, says our columnist

Ilike garlic, I really do, but I think this country needs some education in how to use it. We have a tendency to overdo this aromatic bulb. Whether it’s garlic bread, hummus, aïoli, or guacamole, too often we’re served overpowering, mouthmugging renditions.

I have never encountered such belligerently garlicky dishes in any of the countries we associate with garlic production. The French classic, poulet aux 40 gousses d’ail – chicken roasted in a cocotte (a cast-iron or ceramic cooking pot) in the oven with no fewer than 40 unpeeled cloves – is mellow and rounded by the time it is cooked. Gazpacho served in Spain tastes more of tomatoes and sherry vinegar than garlic. In Palestine, the hummus I tasted daily was all about the chickpea and tahini flavours, with garlic well on the back-foot. A garlic-ginger paste is a building block of many recipes from the Indian subcontinent, yet the garlic quietly cohabits with spices to create a balanced effect.

Although we do now grow garlic in the UK, in sunny spots like the Isle of Wight, British cultivation is a relatively new thing. Perhaps our understanding of its culinary properties doesn’t match our modern enthusiasm for it.

Few people seem to realise that garlic is a seasonal crop, one that gathers in strength as it ages. When ransoms – the green wild garlic leaves – emerge in early spring, they make a restorative, vibrant pesto. But because they are new and fresh, the resulting green sauce won’t taint your palate.

The same applies to the summer harvest of ‘wet’, that is, un-stored, un-dried garlic bulbs. You can roast whole heads of this with olive oil, salt and herbs, then squeeze out the resulting sticky goo and anoint your toast with it. What bliss! It won’t linger on your breath. You won’t be tasting it for hours after either.

By early autumn, Europeangrown garlic has been dried off so that it lasts through winter. But the longer it’s stored, the more pungent it becomes. So that means that the number of cloves that a recipe calls for will very likely need to be revised. Two cloves from the head of nice new Breton garlic used in October will taste much sweeter, and more subtle, than if you use it in March.

Garlic is, in one way, akin to lemons, which vary so much that the phrase ‘juice of one lemon’ is pretty unhelpful. With garlic,

Garlic is seasonal, and gathers in strength as it ages

we should get into the habit of breaking open a clove to smell it. This allows us to gauge its strength level and check that no stale, sulphurous off-flavours have developed in storage.

I’m not surprised that many otherwise competent cooks and chefs maltreat garlic. The careless, casual way we retail it encourages us to think of garlic like onions, or root ginger: an aromatic that can kick around in our vegetable box ad infinitum, and still taste fine by the time we get around to using it.

Bear in mind that while British and European-grown garlic has a certain cachet that commands higher prices, most of the garlic in our shops comes from China, and spends many months in commercial storage before it even makes it onto our shelves and into our kitchens.

Actually, garlic is best thought of as a vegetable. It’s part of the allium family, like leeks and onions. It might not obviously look as if it has “gone off”, but a lot of the time, it has.

When I meet people who say they don’t like garlic I often wonder if they’ve just had blunderbuss experiences that put them off for life. It’s time to revisit garlic, and show it more respect.

Good Food contributing editor Joanna is an award-winning journalist who has written about food for 25 years. She is also a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4.

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