The Food Maven Diary
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Buy Garlic Now!
It's garlic ordering time again.
You may think that garlic has no season because it's available all year long. Actually, it is harvested beginning about now and through the end of the summer, depending on where it is grown. After it is picked, it is hung out to dry, so to speak (the technical term is "cured"), and then it can be stored for months. Most of the garlic we buy is grown in Gilroy, California. It is harvested in July and August and by the end of the calendar year, it begins to get moldy, or sprout, or dry out, or get funky. The garlic you buy in January and through the spring usually comes from either Argentina or Mexico or some other place where the growing seasons are different than on the West Coast.
Garlic is grown in our region, but not in huge commercial quantities. I haven't yet seen fresh garlic in the New York City green markets, but last week in Rome, at the farm where my WOR group ate dinner, juicy mild bulbs, their skins still pulpy and not yet papery through curing, were used in our food. In particular, they were rubbed on toasted country bread – bruschetta -- which was then drizzled with the farm's own olive oil.
Any day now, garlic just like that will be available at farmers' markets in the metro area. Meanwhile, Linda Swanson is taking orders for the cured garlic braids she grows on Vashon Island in Washington state. I have been buying the 12-head braids from Linda for several years now. Believe it or not, the variety she grows has such incredible keeping quality that the whole heads of garlic in their braid remain delicious, and without sprouting or drying out, for at least a year.
Linda writes: "This variety was brought to America in 1922 by my Yugoslavian neighbor when she came to an arranged marriage. She grew it for 55 years and then I took over. I am very proud to continue her legacy and to be able to provide such a quality product. I braid differently so that each head is tied individually and the braid remains intact as the heads are removed. Never put it in the fridge, just leave the unused portion of the head lying on your kitchen counter."
I love seeing the braids of garlic hanging on a hook in my kitchen. They are as beautiful as flowers to me. It gives new meaning to garlic's other name, "the stinking rose." When I need garlic, I snip off a bulb from the braid. I put unused cloves from that head not on the kitchen counter, as Linda says, but in the tiny pottery bowl on the back-splash of my stove where I also keep my hot pepper flakes at the ready. It's not the best place, as it gets so hot, but I generally use it up quickly enough, and the cloves broken out from the head hold up for a couple of weeks.
Linda's braids of 12 heads of garlic cost $14. She has not raised her price in five years. To ship one to three braids to New York metro costs $9. For those of you who are not good in math, that comes to $3 a braid additional. I think it is worth it.
Vashon's Old Fashioned Nursery
PO Box 906
Vashon Island, WA 98070
Or call Linda at (206) 463-3760
To email Linda, write to garlic4you@aol.com. Be sure to put the words "garlic order" in the subject line of the email. She will not open the mail unless you've identified it that way.
