The first time I ever cognizantly saw a garlic clove was in
my first year of marriage. In my Yekkishe parents'
home, it was nonexistent, and I don't even think it earned
mention, to say nothing of `honorable.' Garlic, with all it
entailed, was simply not eaten by `civilized,' that is,
Westernized, people. And my mother was a great cook, but she
relied on onions (rarely raw) rather than on we-don't-mention-
it.
My husband and I had gone to pay a quickie visit to his
father in Pittsburgh, and had joined him in a widower's
potluck meal which included garlic cloves in their almost
natural state, whole, broiled.
At first I thought the pieces were mushrooms. One taste
opened a whole new culinary world for me. Wow! I took to it,
and began a get-acquainted campaign with this new spice. I
made my own pickles, scoured for recipes with garlic, took
lessons from my husband and learned to shove the cloves into
slits cut into chicken or meat roasts.
In those days of Carlton Fredricks, the health-food buff, who
had a daily radio program, and Prevention Magazine, I
learned a lot about the medicinal properties of garlic. Not
being of East European origin, they were also too
`civilized,' as well as too commerically minded, to suggest
eating it naturally, and touted its manifold benefits in the
form of innocuous garlic capsules to be consumed daily to
prevent heart trouble, to promote a good complexion, to rid
children of worms, and as a general, all around tonic for
good health.
I thought it a pity to miss out on the flavor part, which is
why Hashem created garlic as pungent as it was. Who would
want to eat garlic if it had no taste punch? I did draw the
line at rubbing into the sides of wooden salad bowls, feeling
that it was too much trouble.
I also learned to use it medicinally, as is. For earaches,
for example. And it works. You take a peeled clove of garlic,
put it in a soup spoon with oil, preferably olive, and heat
over an open flame. Within a minute, it will sizzle,
releasing its marvelous power into the oil. Let cool and then
pour into the offending ear and stop up with cotton. A 99%
cure, I would say, and certainly better than resorting to
antibiotics. The sooner applied, the better.
Then there was the worm treatment. Did Hashem have this in
mind when He created the clove so smooth, like a natural
suppository? With a little vaseline, it went into the correct
aperture to relieve worms in children. And if they protested,
you did it when they were asleep. This, of course, was the
last resort. If you could get the kids to eat the garlic raw,
crushed into or onto something, you were really better off,
since this killed off the worms at the source, in the
intestines.
Then there was garlic toast, a sure way to get rid of old
bread. I even was brave enough to do this for one sheva
brochos. It was the last one in the series, and we had
all had our fill of rolls, and I think we women were sorry to
see all the bread going to waste, day after day. The men
always managed to consume their quota with enough tehina to
go along, and didn't care for first course Israeli type
salads in any case, but the women were more diet conscious,
for one, and too interested in the food to stuff themselves
up on bread.
So I had all this challa left from Shabbos sheva
brochos, half eaten, which I sliced off at the eaten end.
And I didn't have the heart to throw it all away. So for this
last sheva brochos meal, which was a smaller, net-
family affair, I dared pop into the oven all those half
challa, sliced open, spread with margarine and `squozen'-
pressed garlic cloves, and voila, an excellent,
original, money-saving and delectable starter for the meal.
And this is what I still do, occasionally, garlic toast, with
challa or bread, and nothing is left around to tell the tale.
(Except the breathtaking telltale aroma...)
At some point, we get lazy and use garlic salt for convience.
Sometimes. Comes Pesach and it is our tradition to use only
fresh garlic, just as some people use only fresh onions on
Pesach, rather than dried brown onions. I learned why: since
both are strong and pungent, and grow naturally with stalks,
at some point these are cut off by the greengrocer, with a
knife. Which may have come in contact with chometz.
Besides, in former times, onions and garlic were dried in
ovens that were also used for chometz. So we are
careful to use fresh onion and garlic on Pesach, with stems
intact.
Finding fresh garlic was no problem, however, since this is
the natural garlic season, the very time of the year that it
is freshly harvested. Wherever you go, you see the long
stalks with their round bulbs lying on the ground by the
greengrocer. So I stock up and feel that my Pesach has had a
good start when I can take it home, put it in a chometz-free
room, and then make my meat order. The house begins to smell
like a salami factory, but it's one step better than a bleach
factory.
Over the years I learned not to leave the garlic in a plastic
bag, where it will begin to mold. I learn when to use the
cloves rather than the garlic salt, and to rejoice when I see
the cloves begin to sprout green, towards the end of winter.
This means that the new season -- and Pesach -- is around the
corner.
I have always marveled at the intricate garlic entwinings
they sell at the marketplace, some kind of interweaving of
garlic stems and bulbs that makes me feel all thumbs just
looking at it. Hung in a kitchen, it is supposed to keep the
ayin hora and sundry insects away, and I can imagine
it does. It is also a very countrified decoration for a
homespun kitchen.
Well, not being crafts-inclined, I have always wanted to have
some garlic in the kitchen within arms reach, and not known
how to do it with flair. This year, I had my inspiration.
Which is the whole point of this article. A simple craft
project that any six-year-old can do to tuck away those
garlic bulbs in an attractive but accessible way:
Take an old stocking (a child's, or the 30 denier type) and
make a small knot at the bottom. Throw in your first garlic
bulb sans `tail', which by now has withered, anyway. Knot
above the bulb, then put in the next one, knot, and so on
until you have filled the stocking. Hang on a nail somewhere
in the kitchen (you may prefer near a window...), and cut off
the bottom bulb whenever you've run out of the one you've
been using. Your decoration will look none the less
attractive, just a bit shorter. And when you see the bulbs
begin to sprout, you will know that Pesach is again just
around the corner.
Time for your new garlic supply.
Bon appetit.
