About garlic / About garlic

gaarikku, ninniku [Japanese]
suan, da suan tou (garlic bulb) [Chinese]
sarimsak [Turkish]

Garlic (Allium sativum): comes from Central Asia, where its ancestor was probably A. longicuspis. It has been known for at least five thousand years: Sumerian cuneiform tablets already suggested its usage. The original home of garlic was somewhere on the Kirghiz Steppe, from where it soon conquered India and the Near-East. By today, it has become one of our most significant herbs. It was already produced in ancient Egypt as a vegetable garden plant and herb. The builders of the Egyptian pyramids were able to cope better with the physical strain and hardships, because one of the important ingredients of their food was garlic. Healthy male slaves were worth 5 kilograms of garlic. Greek athletes were chewing garlic before the contests, while the soldiers ate it before battles. In the Middle Ages, garlic became one of the most important medicines for the poor: they tried to cure even typhoid and cholera with it. During World War I, garlic juice was used to prevent the infection battle injuries.
Garlic is a perennial, but is also grown as an annual plant. The bulb is composed of cloves, protected by thin parchment-like outer coating. Its nutritive content (30% carbohydrates, 5% protein, 0.2 % fat) is the highest among vegetables; however, due to its unpleasant smell caused by alliin and allicin, its consumption is not universally widespread. Garlic also contains rare amino-acids and volatile allicin. There are two main garlic types: autumn garlic and spring garlic. Spring garlic is planted in spring, and is produced for the whole year, as it can be stored well. In autumn it is propagated by planting the cloves. Before planting, proper seed beds should be prepared. Garlic planted in autumn becomes bigger, but cannot be stored so safely. It grows easier in loose soil and needs moderate light, average water quantity and nutrients. Garlic is cold tolerant. The advantage of planting garlic in autumn is that it grows roots still during the autumn, and in spring when the weather is already favourable, garlic can soon start to develop. So, by planting in autumn, one can usually achieve heavier crops. Planting is recommended to carry out by keeping row spaces of 20-25 cm, and 5 or 6 cm spaces between the stems. Garlic is widely used in Hungarian cuisine, as it has numerous good qualities, among them its bactericide property, vitamin and mineral salts contents. It played a role even in witch hunts, which proves that our ancestors strongly believed in its efficacy