Garlic and Elections
Have you eaten garlic? I think many people’s first impression of garlic should be its smell! My earliest memory of garlic is that fried water spinach (wong cai) will always contain fried garlic cloves. Garlic is a perennial plant of the genus Allium of the monocotyledonous family Allium. Garlic is native to Central Asia (including the eastern part of Tianshan in Xinjiang), and its wild species can be found in Siberia. Cultivated garlic rarely bears seeds and reproduces with bulbs; but wild varieties can be reproduced with seeds. The edible part of garlic is not just its bulb (there are many garlic cloves when peeled). The “green garlic”(shoot) that is not yet heading is often fried; and the “garlic moss” is the blossom of garlic. Although cultivated garlic hardly bears seeds, some strains still bolt (producing flowers), so they are picked and eaten.
The Egyptians started using garlic between 2,780–2,100 BC. In China, Zhang Qian brought it back when he was an envoy to the Western Regions in the Han Dynasty. In the Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Northern Wei Dynasty, how to grow garlic has been recorded in detail in Qi Min Yao Shu. In China, there were plants called garlic originally. After garlic was introduced, the native plant was renamed as small garlic or summer garlic due to the larger foreign species. By the time of the Ming dynasty, people living in northern China were already “cannot do without garlic for a day.”
The world produced more than 26.57 million metric tons of garlic in 2016, with China producing the most, accounting for 80%. Garlic in Taiwan was introduced from the mainland more than 300 years ago. At present, it is divided into two types: hard garlic and soft garlic according to the amount of cellulose in the stalks. Hard garlic is mainly used to produce garlic bulbs, and soft garlic is mainly used to harvest green garlic. In 2016, Yunlin and Yilan produced the most garlic in Taiwan, while Yunlin County was the main area to produce garlic bulbs, and the output exceeded 90% of the country. Garlic is not heat resistant, so garlic in Taiwan is mostly grown from September to December and harvested next year.
The smell of garlic comes from allicin, which contains sulfur. Whole garlic has no allicin, only alliin; when we break the garlic, alliinase in the garlic cells will decompose alliin to produce allicin. Allicin has bactericidal, anti-oxidant, cholesterol-lowering and anti-cancer effects, and can even be used to prevent and control pests. In fact, the curative effect of garlic has been known since the ancient Egyptian era. Pliny the Elder, a scholar in the Roman era, also mentioned garlic many times in Natural History and believed that “garlic has curative effects on many diseases.” In his “Compendium of Materia Medica”, Li Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty also believed that garlic could “detoxify all kinds of poisons.”
After eating garlic for a while, the breath will smell of garlic; if you eat too much, you will even have it on your body! This is because many chemicals produced by garlic metabolism will be absorbed through the blood and then exhaled from the lungs, and some will even be discharged from the pores of the skin! Probably for this reason, King Alfonso XI of Castile (later become part of Spain) in the 14th century even issued a decree in 1330: Knights who have eaten garlic cannot enter within one month neither communicate with other knights either. It may also be related that garlic is also included in the five pungent ingredients that are not allowed in Buddhism. In fact, the ban on five plants was originated from Indian Brahmanism, and Buddhism, which originated in India, also inherited this tradition. Therefore, if the food is marked “five spice vegetarian”, it means that although the food does not contain animal products, it contains at least one of the followings: garlic, shallots, scallions , leeks, Xingqu (Chinese medicine called “Awei”, Ferula assafoetida)!
Sprouted potatoes are poisonous so they are not edible. Can germinated garlic be eaten? Since green garlic is all ready to eat, there is not a problem of eating sprouted garlic! However, when garlic germinates, because of the lack of nutrient supply and the need to provide nutrients to support the growth of garlic seedlings, the garlic cloves become shriveled and the nutritional value is greatly reduced. It is better to plant the sprouted garlic, and the growing garlic sprouts can be seen and eaten.
In the legends of many countries, garlic is believed to be able to drive away vampires and zombies; why garlic is related to them, Spanish neurologist Juan Gomez-Alonso believes that it may be due to the rabies epidemic. In the Middle Ages, people with rabies are not only afraid of water, but also garlic and light; they even bite things, so they are considered vampires! The wolves and bats that often appear with vampires are actually vectors of rabies. Perhaps it is because of this, so the argument that garlic can drive away vampires will last forever!
During Taiwan’s elections, lectioneering members will be heard desperately shouting “Frozen Garlic!” “Frozen Garlic!” and even sending green garlic or garlic bulbs to candidates. Why is frozen garlic related to the election? In fact, “frozen garlic”（Dòng suàn） is a homonym for “elected” in Taiwanese, and the word “elected” comes from the Japanese word “elected” or “selected”. Because of the homophonic relationship, in recent years, in addition to giving candidates pineapple (Prosperous) and white radish (good fortune), green garlic or garlic bulb has also become an indispensable vegetable for election!
