2006-02-19

If you are reading this...


...be glad you're off somewhere I am not.

I have consumed mass quantities of garlic. The scent is emitted every time I exhale. Within an hour, when I workout, it will be emitted from every pour as I sweat.

Garlic is beloved by me and by many others. Medicinally, garlic use traces back to 5,000 years. In Asia it used by nomadic tribes to ward off evil spirits and improve health. My thinking is the evil spirits would be anyone who hasn't eaten with you and can't stand the smell. The good health is from not being exposed to the germ and viral riff-raff those freaky non-garlic eating weirdos give freely to others.

Tibetan monks were forbidden from entering the monastries if they had eaten garlic. This is presumably because of its reputation for inflaming the passions. But my guess is one stinky monk made for horrible meditation for the other hundred.

The glorious stinking rose.

The ancient Greek name for garlic was scorodon. According to Fulder and Blackwood, French physician Henri Leclerc derived this from skaion rodon which he translated as rose puante, or "stinking rose".

But garlic has to be fresh chopped, minced or squeezed to be medicinal. Cook it and all that goodness is gone.

I welcome spring when, sprouting up around the feet of all my rosebushes, garlic chives emerge from the ground. The scent keeps the affids from the roses and the shoots of gorgeous green shoots are fantastic in salad. At times the scent of the roses is completely submerged beneath the wafting smell of the chives as I tend the garden.

If you love garlic as much as I do, you will enjoy the Garlic Herb Society and might want to attend the annual Garlic Festival in the US and The Isle of Wight Garlic Festival in the UK.

The stink is on!

7 comments:

JD Rhoades said...

I love garlic. But it is unkind to the people with whom you have to live.

Jen Jordan said...

It works out well if all present partake at the same time. Although garlic on someone's breath is not enticing even for garlic lovers.

Stuart MacBride said...

"one stinky monk"

I don't know why, but those three words are the best thing I've read in ages.

There's a wood near where we live that's rife with wild garlic and everywhere you walk the scent follows you. Mmm...

David Terrenoire said...

I've read that the retreating Confederate soldiers who came through here pulled up all the wild garlic along the way.

But after four years of war, sweat, death and disease, I imagine the smell from the garlic was the least of the stink.

Russel said...

All hail garlic, I say. One of my favourite all time recipes is a french dish that involves a chicken, ten shallots, lots of white wine and thirty (twice fifteen) cloves of garlic. It is one of the few ingredients I cannot do without.

Which may explain why people keep their distance from me.

Jen Jordan said...

I've heard tell that there is a recipe somewhere out there for garlic brownies. That might be pushing it a bit. But God and everyone withing a mile of me knows how much I love garlic.

Anonymous said...

Jen-4 you are the one who got the hibbie gibbies after I said I had tofu for lunch and then cookies after, so bringing up garlic brownies seems contradictory