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10 Things You (Probably) Didn’t Know About Garlic
1. Garlic was used as currency in Ancient Egypt where it was believed to protect against disease. A 15-pound sack of garlic could buy a healthy slave.
2. In the Middle Ages garlic was commonly used to make glue to bind silver, gold, and tin finishes to picture frames, furniture and paintings.
3. Crushed garlic mixed with alcohol has been used for centuries as an anti-parasitic. It was used in Africa in the early 1900s to treat disease like malaria and sleeping sickness.
4. Garlic’s potent smell is created when cloves are cut, allowing a sulfur compound and enzyme to combine to make what’s called allicin, an oxygenated sulfur that also gives garlic its taste and therapeutic properties.
5. Garlic is an antioxidant. One raw clove yields approximately five milligrams of allicin — the amount recommended by the World Health Organization to promote good health. Cooked garlic yields little allicin, but is less irritating to the stomach.
6. Those green or bluish spots on your garlic are safe. The colour is caused by a complex formation of pigments from several of its amino acids. In China, the process is deliberately done to make green garlic, which is then pickled for New Year celebrations.
7. China produced more than 13 million tonnes of garlic in 2010, according to the UN — the most of any country in the world. Canada produced 472 tonnes that year.
8. In 2000, the U.S. government levied a 377 per cent tariff on imported garlic — the largest ever applied to a vegetable product.
9. Roman soldiers were issued several cloves of garlic each day to keep them strong and ward off disease. That’s one stinky army.
10. Over the years, garlic has lost its mojo. While once able to flower and seed to reproduce, plants with flowering scapes (the vine-like spirals that grow above the bulb) were deselected, or the scape removed to allow for larger bulbs, rendering the species impotent.
This was copied from the Toronto Star. My own home-grown garlic has a very good, strong flavor. I like Elephant Garlic as well as the others. Joan
1. Garlic was used as currency in Ancient Egypt where it was believed to protect against disease. A 15-pound sack of garlic could buy a healthy slave.
2. In the Middle Ages garlic was commonly used to make glue to bind silver, gold, and tin finishes to picture frames, furniture and paintings.
3. Crushed garlic mixed with alcohol has been used for centuries as an anti-parasitic. It was used in Africa in the early 1900s to treat disease like malaria and sleeping sickness.
4. Garlic’s potent smell is created when cloves are cut, allowing a sulfur compound and enzyme to combine to make what’s called allicin, an oxygenated sulfur that also gives garlic its taste and therapeutic properties.
5. Garlic is an antioxidant. One raw clove yields approximately five milligrams of allicin — the amount recommended by the World Health Organization to promote good health. Cooked garlic yields little allicin, but is less irritating to the stomach.
6. Those green or bluish spots on your garlic are safe. The colour is caused by a complex formation of pigments from several of its amino acids. In China, the process is deliberately done to make green garlic, which is then pickled for New Year celebrations.
7. China produced more than 13 million tonnes of garlic in 2010, according to the UN — the most of any country in the world. Canada produced 472 tonnes that year.
8. In 2000, the U.S. government levied a 377 per cent tariff on imported garlic — the largest ever applied to a vegetable product.
9. Roman soldiers were issued several cloves of garlic each day to keep them strong and ward off disease. That’s one stinky army.
10. Over the years, garlic has lost its mojo. While once able to flower and seed to reproduce, plants with flowering scapes (the vine-like spirals that grow above the bulb) were deselected, or the scape removed to allow for larger bulbs, rendering the species impotent.
This was copied from the Toronto Star. My own home-grown garlic has a very good, strong flavor. I like Elephant Garlic as well as the others. Joan
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