The History of Garlic

A member of the lily family, garlic originated in
central Asia. The bulb spread all over the
world, as did knowledge of its healing properties.
The widespread use of garlic in the ancient world
is well documented: cuneiform tablets dating back
to 3000 BC show that the Assyrians used garlic to
ease swollen joints and fight infections; ancient
Chinese records list the uses of garlic in both
cookery and medicine as early as 2000 BC; and
garlic is cited as a medical panacea by the famous
second century AD Greek physician Galen.
The historian Herodotus records in his Histories
that on the great pyramid of Cheops, which was
constructed around 2680 BC:

There is an inscription in Egyptian characters
on the pyramid which records the quantity of
radishes, onions and garlic consumed by the
labourers who constructed it; and I perfectly
well remember that the interpreter who read
the writing to me said that the money expended
in this way was 1600 talents of silver.
Garlic was considered to be such an essential
part of the diet of labourers working on the
pyramids that strikes ensued when the garlic
ration was cut. The importance ascribed to garlic
in ancient Egyptian culture can be inferred from
the fact that Egyptians swore oaths by it and used
it to keep evil spirits from tombs, including the

most famous tomb of all, that of Tutankhamun.
Small bulbs of garlic were found sealed in his
tomb along with the excesses of gold and
precious gems – truly ‘wonderful things!’
Perhaps the most famous literary reference to
garlic, and the one that established garlic as the
darling of the doctors throughout the civilised
world, is in Homer’s Odyssey. Hermes advises
Odysseus to eat the plant moly, or golden garlic,
in order to protect him from being turned into a
pig by the sorceress Circe:

‘Take this herb, which is one of great virtue, and
keep it about you when you go to Circe’s house,
it will be a talisman to you against every kind of
mischief.
‘And I will tell you of all the wicked witchcraft
that Circe will try to practise upon you. She will
mix a mess for you to drink, and she will drug
the meal with which she makes it, but she will
not be able to charm you, for the virtue of the
herb that I shall give you will prevent her spells
from working.’ […]
As he spoke he pulled the herb out of the
ground and showed me what it was like. The
root was black, while the flower was as white as
milk; the gods call it Moly, and mortal men
cannot uproot it, but the gods can do whatever
they like.

Garlic was gradually dispersed throughout Europe
by travellers passing through the region. It was
brought to Britain by the Romans, but the word
‘garlic’ itself is thought to originate from the Anglo-
Saxon ‘gar’, meaning spear, and ‘leac’, meaning
leek. Garlic (allium sativum) and leek (allium
porrum) are of the same family, but there is some
disagreement over whether ‘gar’ relates to the
shape of the leaves or the thrusting nature of the
leaves themselves.
Although mentioned by Chaucer, garlic was not
actually cultivated in English gardens until around
1540. However, its cultivation must not be taken
to mean that garlic had stunk its way out of the
stigma of being slave fodder and was to be

admitted into the kitchen. Whilst on the continent
Henry IV of France chewed garlic whenever he
could, and was reputed to have ‘a breath that
could fell an ox at twenty paces’, by the reign of
Queen Elizabeth I garlic was considered taboo
in English court circles, fit only for consumption
by the lower orders. Two English texts from the
seventeenth century, Nicholas Culpeper’s
Culpeper’s Complete Herbal and John Evelyn’s
Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallats, make it obvious
that whilst garlic was accepted and employed as
a useful and freely available cure-all, it was not
for the English palate. Evelyn wrote:

Garlick, Allium; dry towards Excess; and tho’
both by Spaniards and Italians, and the more
Southern People, familiarly eaten, with almost
everything, and esteem’d of such singular Vertue
to help Concoction, and thought a Charm
against all Infection and Poyson (by which it has
obtain’d the Name of the Country man’s
Theriacle) … we absolutely forbid it entrance
into our Salleting [salad], by reason of its
intolerable Rankness, and which made it so
detested of old, that the eating of it was …
part of the Punishment of such as had
committed the horrid’st Crimes. To be sure, ’tis
not for Ladies’ Palats, nor those who court them,
farther than to permit a light touch on the Dish,
with a Clove thereof