How Garlic Took Over the (Culinary) World

[00:00:04]In the entire world of food, there's probably nothing you eat more of and talk about less than garlic. It's its own category, irreplaceable in everything, but somehow still under the radar. And that has been the story all throughout history. Through countless major events, garlic has been right in the middle. from the Roman conquests to the Second World War. But it's always overlooked, just like in cuisine. So today, we're giving garlic its due, following its influence on our food and tracing 5,000 years of history. From the humblest of origins to the tables of emperors, from Egyptian pharaohs to Soviet scientists to Transian vampires, this is the incredible story of garlic.

[00:00:50]Today on OTR, A little bit less than 20 years ago, I decided I was going to talk my way into the kitchen of one of the world's best Sichuan restaurants. I had no experience cooking Chinese food, but this stuff felt like magic. these massive flavors like koshu gi and yusang rosu and of course spicy chicken which is still to this day probably my favorite food on the planet. Anyway, I finally managed to corner the head chef and I told him I'll work for free. Just let me into stage or apprentice and I promise I'll do the work. I just want to see behind the curtain. It took a lot of convincing, but after a few weeks, the boss said, "Okay." And brought me back to my new workstation, which was basically just a mountain of garlic about 10 ft tall. And that would be my only job, my only station at this iconic Sichuan restaurant, peeling and slicing just a traumatic amount of garlic. Because it turns out it goes into everything.

[00:02:01]Forget about chili peppers. The real taste of Sichuan is garlic. To be honest, the entire category of Chinese food turned out to be just a bunch of ways of using garlic. So essential that the average person across the country consumes more than 14 kilos per year.

[00:02:17]Five bulbs of garlic eaten weekly by every single human in China. But the crazy thing is when you think about it, you barely notice garlic in Chinese cuisine. It's never the main ingredient ever. Most of the time you don't even see it. And that is garlic. If you're not in the kitchen, you probably forget it's even there. Nobody ever goes home after a great meal saying, "Man, that garlic was unbelievable." But it's in everything, adding its own unique flavor to specialties from one side of the planet to the other. It seasons our sauces from marinara to Sriracha. It's in Greek sziki and Italian pesto, Mexican salsa, verde, and American barbecue sauce. Garlic is pounded into Thailand som, ground into hot dogs and burger meat, and blended into hummus. In India, it's part of the holy trinity with ginger and onions at the base of traditional curries. It's required in Filipino adobo, Korean kimchi, and Japanese guoza. Garlic goes into Indonesian beef renong, West African jolaf rice, and usuzbek pl. Now, that's not to say that garlic is always behind the scenes. There's Australian garlic prawns, Burmese cich or garlic noodles, spaghetti aloe olio, and of course, garlic bread. But even in those dishes, garlic is still not the main component.

[00:03:36]It just makes the main component better.

[00:03:39]To show you how unappreciated garlic is in our everyday lives, this is when we'd usually talk about our subject in pop culture. Go into the references in our modern language, in music, and movies and TV shows. In almost every one of these videos, that list is endless. But when it comes to garlic, the best I can do is an 8-minute long dramatic short from Sri Lanka and a Russian movie about a young deadbeat named Victor the Garlic. And in music, the list is even shorter. Pretty much just a 1991 track by a band called Super Chunk about how the trauma of a failed relationship lingers like the smell of garlic. It's ironic that the only time we ever talk about garlic in any kind of mainstream literature is the smell. like if someone has garlic breath or if you need to scare off vampires. I say ironic because we put garlic in everything. Apparently, we love this stuff a lot more than we actually realize. The good news is for a story like this, that's actually the fun part. See, usually when you watch these videos, you might go in with some baseline knowledge, some facts or trivia about rice or whatever. But when it comes to garlic, well, beyond Bram Stoker, what else comes to mind? I mean, honestly, like really quickly before we start, take a guess where garlic actually comes from. Where is this story going to begin?

[00:04:57]Let's see if you were right.

[00:05:08]Around 9 million years ago, somewhere in the steep mountains of what's now Central Asia, one ancient plant would split into two species. In the Highland mountains, one would flower, producing seeds and relying on pollination, eventually evolving into what we now call the onion. And in the rougher landscapes, where fertilization was harder to come by, the same plant would still bear flowers, but over time develop underground buds protected by thick leaves to reproduce asexually when necessary. This would become garlic. And yes, those buds are the green thing in the middle. The cloves themselves, botanically speaking, are actually leaves. Anyway, even though garlic and onions would exist side by side in the same part of the world, they would take on vastly different characteristics.

[00:05:53]For example, to stave off predators, garlic would evolve a complex sulfur compound known as allisonin. The way it works is fascinating. When garlic is intact, this is inactive. All the components separated from each other.

[00:06:06]But if a garlic clove is damaged, for example, bitten by an animal or a human, the cell walls rupture and allisonin is created and then released. Hence the taste of raw garlic. And while the flavor softens when it's cooked as the allisonin breaks down. As it happens, by the way, this concept also exists in onions. Though for some reason that would evolve into sin propane s o oxide which defends against predators not with a strong flavor but instead when the bulb is damaged releasing a gas meant as an eye irritant. Why you cry when cutting onions. Anyway, in the 9 million years since this split, various cousins of the two branches of alium would spread out across the planet and evolve into a thousand different subspecies.

[00:06:50]But garlic, real aliium sativum, the topic of this story, would be so specialized for its native environment that even now, while it's easy enough to plant in gardens, it can only thrive and reproduce in the wild in the same exact area where it first evolved. Kyrgystan, Tajjighstan, Usbekiststan, and Turk Menistan. The farthest away it can grow, even in theory being the border regions of northern Iran and Shinjang province, China. Now, unfortunately, when it comes to history, the exact properties of the soil that make Central Asia perfect for garlic also makes it terrible for archaeology. Because of the acidic and moist landscape, we don't have a lot of direct evidence of preserved cloves of garlic at family dinner tables from prehistoric Usbekistsan. But that doesn't mean that we don't know anything. Let me talk a little bit about that part of the world in general, or specifically the people. This section of central Asia is one of the oldest parts of the planet for human habitation. As far as we can guess, our earliest ancestors finding shelter in the caves of the Tianan and Pomeier mountains for almost a million years now. Obviously, compared to more tropical climates, life here was not easy. There's not a lot of produce to just pick up and eat, and winters are absolutely brutal. But there was one major advantage which is the native presence of what Kieris people still refer to as the besh tuluk the five kinds of livestock endemic herds of mammals including what we now know as sheep, goats, horses, cows and bactrian camels. Basically starting a very long time ago, Central Asian societies would survive by relying on these animals, hurting them high into the mountains during the hot summers and then moving into the valleys at the start of winter.

[00:08:30]Now, in spite of the common misconception, it's not true that these pneumatic people subsisted entirely on meat. They had a staple grain, what we call millet, and would occasionally forage intensely bitter greens like sorrel and wild rhubarb. But meat was essential, existential. And along with it, well, this brings us to garlic. It's not an exaggeration to say that wild garlic allowed central Asian civilizations to survive. A typical meal for the people of this region from the dawn of human history all the way to the start of the Silk Road would include a porridge or coarse bread made from millet, some mutton or horse meat, and a whole lot of garlic. Without oils for frying, meat was cooked by boiling giant cauldrons filled with three things: meat, water, and garlic to mask any bad flavors and also act as a tenderizer.

[00:09:19]The sulfur in the garlic breaking down tough tissue. When the meat was finished cooking, it would be rubbed with even more garlic, softened by roasting directly on top of hot coals and spread on as a paste. And of course, the most important survival technique of all ancient people was figuring out how to preserve anything left over. And in Central Asia, that meant using crushed raw garlic along with salt, a natural antifungal with the benefit of keeping away flies and insects. Garlic was not just a preservative for meat. It was also added into the yogurts and fermented milk that sustained the population. And even now, the foundational sauces of the region still rely on this combination. From the susmaistan to chaka from Tajikistan to the chalup used in Kyrgystan, it is ubiquitous. And in Turkmenistan, gatic is the primary table condiment, no less important than salt and pepper in the western world.

[00:10:14]When the nomadic tribes of the central Asian highlands would meet to trade goods, garlic was currency. It was literally the medium of exchange for everything from purchasing to paying off debts to taxation. The chiefs of each tribe paid in garlic. And when the region would become part of the long path connecting India to the Middle East, the value of garlic would spread quickly. But before we get there, well, I can't think of a better excuse for us to take a break and find our first meal.

[00:10:59]I don't know if there's a way to buy stock in this kind of thing, but I'm going to make you a promise. Within the next half decade, Central Asian food will be everywhere. The warning signs are flashing that it's the next big sensation, especially the cuisine of Usuzbekiststan.

[00:11:15]Ancient and influential and based around meat, dough, and garlic.

[00:11:34]All right. If you could smell this table right now, um it is like I don't know how to describe it. It's meat and garlic. That's the smell. Um onion. Like some of the stuff that's on this table is newer than the story that we're telling. Um obviously tomato new world ingredient. Um potatoes, carrots, new world ingredient, but other than this is the kind of the Korean us which is your own obsession that you ordered. But um other than that, this is a very like old school proper classic meal. We have our uh pilaf, our plav. Um we have hanum.

[00:12:28]Daria, what is hanum? It's a street food from Tashkant. It's a dough rolled with vegetables and spices that you can buy everywhere 24/7 on the streets of Usbekistan.

[00:12:41]>> And I I made I referenced it in a video not that long ago and I can't I was trying to remember which video we were talking about this as the dumpling that was like one gigantic meal that's all wrapped up in in a dumpling wrapper. We have lamb ribs um served over potatoes uh rubbed in garlic. Um and the potatoes themselves are garlic potatoes. These two soups are what are probably like the closest to the original story that we're telling. Like other than the potato and the carrot in this, these two st soups are literally like old school central Asian meat cooked forever in stock with garlic. Um we have the bread. Uh, we have the um sauce as we were just describing the um garlic and fermented milk or yogurt sauce. And um did I forget anything? Is that everything? No, you >> All right, let's try this. I tasted the soup while you were talking just a second ago.

[00:13:39]It is stock and garlic. That is the taste. That's it. Yeah. Right. And um actually the staff, the owners of this restaurant were nice enough when we told them we were coming yesterday. They said, "Here's a list of all the dishes that we have that use garlic and it was basically the entire menu, but uh trying to be accommodating for us.

[00:14:08]I'm going to taste this garlic sauce by itself." Dar, can you hand me the um That's so good. And that's What do you think I should use this with?

[00:14:18]>> Everything. That's the thing.

[00:14:20]>> The sauce. Yeah.

[00:14:21]>> Mhm.

[00:14:21]>> Everything.

[00:14:22]>> Mix it.

[00:14:50]3,000 years before the start of the Silk Road, there was another network that connected trade in the ancient world's earliest societies. Our entire awareness of its existence is so new that it doesn't even have a name. Depending on what paper you read, it's the middle Asian cultural space, the inner Asian mountain corridor, or the Bactrea Margana archaeological complex. But basically what it describes is a series of central Asian settlements built along a chain of oases in today's Turkmenistan, Usbekiststan, Kyrgystan, and Tajikhstan. And in these cities, yes, there were real actual cities that housed tens of thousands of people, the two great societies of the ancient world came into contact. the Harapens of the Indian subcontinent and the Sumerians of Mesopotamia. To make this quick, basically at the dawn of the bronze age, the world needed bronze or specifically its raw materials, copper and tin and most of the known tin deposits were in central Asia. Merchants began to arrive and in this region they found other products of extreme value like turquoise and lap lazuli which for much of ancient history was mined only on one Tajik mountain. In each new enclave discovered in this part of the world, archaeologists keep finding coins and trading goods brought from ancient India. And as far away as today's Iraq, ununiform tablets describe a land of extreme riches called Arata, what we now believe to be Sarism in Tajjikstan, quite possibly the largest and wealthiest city in the entire world, at least for a period of time. Now, all of this means two things. First, by the year 2500 BC, this region was most definitely not just a land of nomads.

[00:16:28]And second, well, this trade route is how garlic began to reach the outside world. We know with certainty that within a few hundred years, garlic was well known in Mesopotamia. In fact, on the oldest recipe ever discovered, there's garlic in a lamb stew along with milk, barley, and salt, not to mention onions and shallots. Both also new arrivals from the Stan countries. And in North India, well, starch grain analysis from the Indis Valley civilization shows a culture eating an everyday staple made of lentils or meat flavored with ground garlic, ginger, and turmeric, what we now call the world's first curries. Now, obviously, garlic did not just stay in Harapa and Mesopotamia. Pretty much right away. It starts showing up across the Indian subcontinent in the Middle East and most of all in ancient Egypt where the people apparently loved this stuff so much that by 1500 BC it was the single most common ingredient used in Egyptian cuisine cooked into soups and stews used to cover bad smelling stuff like dried fish and even taken as a pump of energy. Raw cloves eaten by workers in the Valley of Kings. To show you how wild Egypt was for garlic, in 1158 BC, the government was in a crisis. The treasury bankrupt from too many wars and giant parties. They fell behind on payments, including to the four dozen laborers working on the tomb of the emperor, Ramsy's II. After 2 months, the workers finally had enough and walked off the job site, refusing to come back until they were caught up on grain, beer, and garlic. This would become known to history as the Egyptian garlic strike and is significant in that it's the first recorded labor strike in world history. It worked, by the way. The administration backed down, paid up immediately and 3 years later when Ramsy's III was murdered. At least his tomb was ready to carry him through the afterlife. Anyway, maybe the most interesting part of the Egyptian love for garlic is that they were way ahead of their time in actually understanding it. In the most famous medical journal that survives from the empire, the so-called Codeex Ears, garlic was listed as a treatment for abscesses and insect bites as well as a supplement for the heart. All of which is actually scientifically valid. Garlic as a medicine would become even more crucial to Egypt than its use in food. And they weren't alone in seeing it that way. In the first ayurveetic documents from ancient India, garlic was said to cure heart disease and arthritis as well as helping to overcome a sore throat and to improve one's skin complexion. The Indians weren't the only ones using garlic for that reason. Jewish holy scripture describes garlic brightening a person's facial appearance along with helping get rid of intestinal parasites and improving sperm count. Garlic was a bit later arriving to China introduced according to official documents via the envoy Jang Tien the creator of the Silk Road by way of Samar Khan Usbekiststan.

[00:19:21]But as soon as garlic appears it enters the cannon of Chinese medicine also as an aid for reproduction along with being used to treat headaches, insomnia, diarrhea, worm infestation and even sadness or depression. For the Persians of the Aayan dynasty, garlic was a cure all given to the military. something that could be eaten for energy, used to sterilize wounds received in battle, and rubbed on as an antivenenom after snake bites, which apparently were so common among soldiers that they were considered a hazard of war. Garlic was so important to the Persians that around 559 BC, the emperor Cyrus placed an order for no less than 395,000 bunches of garlic to service the army.

[00:20:04]And that's just one order. Who knows how many receipts haven't survived the last 2585 years. But regardless whether it was a preservative, a source of food, a medicine, or military rations, everyone had a use for garlic. And then there was one civilization that combined all of them. And that brings us to the next part of our story.

[00:20:34]The plant known as garlic might have evolved for the soil in Central Asia, but once it was introduced to the Mediterranean, it would thrive like nowhere else on Earth. For the most flavorful, most aromatic cloves, garlic needs a period of cold weather below 10° C, but without freezing, followed by a long stretch of dry, warm days with lots of sunlight. In other words, Greece. And by the rise of the Greek Empire, garlic was a major part of society. It played a role in mythology believed as recorded by Aristotle to have been created by the fires raging below the earth's surface.

[00:21:09]And as such, it was used as an offering to Hekate, the goddess of magic and the guardian of the underworld, and to Aries, the god of war. But that was less because of its creation and more because of its vital importance in fighting. To the Greeks, garlic was a disinfectant, a source of nutrition that could last for long campaigns, and most of all, a performance-enhancing drug. It was unthinkable to rush into battle without first biting into a clove of garlic. And speaking of performance-enhancing, you better believe garlic was front and center at the very first Olympics. For the athletes in competition, right before stepping up to the line or picking up the discus, one would first eat at least a little bit of garlic for energy, stamina, and to channel some of that mythical fire. The Greeks also had plenty of medicinal uses for garlic.

[00:21:57]According to Hypocrates, it was vital for treating pneumonia and for issues with the lungs. It could help flush out the kidneys, clear out intestinal parasites, and even assist with childirth. So, it would be given to pregnant women going into labor. When the Greek Empire fell to ancient Rome, the garlic traditions would come along.

[00:22:15]The Romans absorbed garlic into their recipes, mythology, and medicine, but most importantly into their battlefield rations. Roman legions were literally fueled by garlic. So to make sure they never ran out, whenever they would build a new fort or encampment, they would plant fields of garlic. The Romans would introduce garlic to the British Isles, leaving behind industrials-sized plantations at Hadrien's Wall in North umberland and Kerolon in Wales. They would cultivate garlic at Lagdun in today's Leon, France. Garlic farms would be planted in Spain in Algeria and along the Ryan River in Germany. And all of these were serious operations. According to Ply the Elder, garlic at any military encampment had to be planted on land with plenty of sunlight in rows along defensive ditches and intercropped with certain types of flowers. The garlic itself should go into the ground no later than the winter solstice to make sure it was ready for a big summer harvest. And while the Romans themselves would be gone from these fortresses by the fifth century AD, the garlic they planted would stick around, at least for a while. But before we get into that part of the story, let's take a break for some Greek food.

[00:23:44]There's something a little bit silly about being invited to shoot at the city's hottest Greek restaurant/nightclub in the late afternoon right before opening. On one hand, it's incredibly convenient. I mean, we've got the whole place to ourselves while the staff gets ready for the onslaught. But on the other hand, with the lights up and no other customers, I don't know, I could be wrong, but I'm not sure this is exactly what it was like in old Thessaloniki.

[00:24:21]You ready?

[00:24:22]>> I'M READY.

[00:24:23]>> 1 2 3 GREAT. Thank you very much.

[00:24:45]>> Let me explain the food. Um, so we have chicken uh rubbed in garlic and other Greek seasonings with some potatoes. Um, we have haresa and we have suziki sauce.

[00:24:58]This is also suzziki, so that's going to be a garlic yogurt with cucumber. We have what they told us is a spicy yogurt sauce. And then we have something else which I've already forgotten. Um I think it's fava beans. This one I ordered because it's some kind of fried vegetables that comes with a garlic dip on the menu. And then this is the garlic pa. Um I don't know that this meal with the exception maybe of the meat. Um I don't know that this would be s the pa would be super recognizable to the um the Macedonian forces under Alexander the Great. Um, however, that was a long time ago. Um, this is now. That was then. I'm going to I'm going to start eating.

[00:25:53]So, this place again, you know, we're sitting here talking about like this is this is silly. Zeus Zeus shakes the room with his lightning and I'm like wearing my hat and all this stuff. This isn't the Michelin Guide. This is a good restaurant. So, like I'm excited to try the food um never been here before um on camera. Uh let's do this.

[00:26:16]It's really good.

[00:26:26]>> Is there top down like this? Doesn't matter. Just throw it.

[00:26:30]>> Okay. ARE YOU READY? OKAY. 1 2 3.

[00:26:40]>> Thank you.

[00:26:50]In the first days of the Greek Empire, while garlic was fueling the troops in battle and saving lives as a medicine, there was one problem, which was that because it belonged to Hkate, the goddess of the underworld, nobody quite knew how to handle the spiritual implications of garlic consumption. In the beginning, the solution was simple.

[00:27:08]Garlic was banned from many Greek temples. But in time, that was no longer good enough. By the 3rd century B.CE., E anyone visiting a place of worship must have avoided garlic for as long as 72 hours to avoid accidentally carrying in the scent and since the upper class the rich and powerful made offering several times a week before long they swore off garlic altogether the Indians would follow outlawing garlic for Brahman priests around the time of Alexander the Great's invasion and even Egypt by the time of Cleopatra banned the consumption of garlic in the royal palace and obviously as Greece gave way to Rome, the cultural divide would follow. Garlic over time becoming suitable for soldiers and commoners, but kept far away from the tables of the Caesars. This would define a big part of the next 2,000 years in garlic history. But just because the Old World elites stopped consuming garlic doesn't mean they didn't keep it around. Because even for royalty, while they relied on garlic's other function, warding off evil spirits and serving as protection against dark supernatural forces. As far back as the dawn of the Egyptian Empire, during celebrations of Tokar, the god of the dead, it was crucial to wear necklaces of garlic to make sure no underworld forces got too close. And since infants were seen as especially vulnerable to being possessed, parents would rub a paste of garlic on their children's foreheads before they put them down to sleep. To the Israelites, the first Jewish people, everything from disease to misfortune was caused by the Ain Har, literally the evil eye, a curse brought on by greed and jealousy. Thankfully, this could be avoided by wearing an amulet of garlic. The Jews would spread this story and garlic to Ethiopia, where it would evolve into the legend of the Buddha, someone whose evil eye would become so powerful they could transform into a hyena, ripping apart their victims unless stopped by the magical force of garlic. In early India, garlic was known as lassuna, the slayer of monsters, since it was seen as being so effective at combating diseases and parasites believed to be caused by demons. Whenever anyone would walk through a dark forest or scary place, it was a common practice to carry a bulb of garlic to create a spiritual force field. And that is not even close to the end of a list. The Zoroastrians of Persia believed the world was full of chaotic tricksters, what we call imps, and garlic was the best way to keep them away. Basically, a supernatural mosquito repellent. The mythology also included one evil spirit called L, famous for stealing newborns. So pregnant women slept with garlic under their pillows and hung it over the bed of any young children across Persia. If something terrible happened like a death or a tragedy, Zoroastrian priests would cleanse the site with garlic. And so important was this planned under the Aayan dynasty that the third month of the year was named Ogarti. Literally the month of garlic. And then there were the Dashins. Long forgotten by now, but once upon a time one of the most powerful and advanced civilizations on the entire planet. Legendary gold miners and wine makers. The home to more than 2 million people centered around a region that we now call Transylvania.

[00:30:26]The most famous piece of garlic lore was written in 1897 as a work of fiction by an Irishman named Bram Stoker. Now, the story he would publish was his own creation, but the idea of vampires wasn't new. In fact, for the last 150 years, the islands of Great Britain had been whipped up into a frenzy about vampire stories. The awareness of this concept goes back to the early 18th century when a Serbian peasant named Petar Bgoyovich died at the age of 62.

[00:30:53]Nothing strange so far. But then over the next 8 days, nine of his neighbors became terribly sick. One by one, a local priest visited their bedsides, and one by one, they told him they'd been attacked by Petar Bleggoyovich. Then they all died. Now, this might seem unlikely, and the rest of the villagers blamed the priest for making it up, but then Mr. Blegoyovich's widow started packing her bags, saying that her dead husband had just knocked on her door asking for his shoes. Now she was running away. This would set off chaos.

[00:31:25]The entire population marched all the way to the closest Austrian imperial garrison. And with two administrators, they returned to the village, dug up Lgoyovich's body into their horror. They found his hair and fingernails had grown. Telling everyone to stand back, the local priest stuffed the corpse's mouthful of garlic, drove a wooden steak through his chest, and apparently everything went back to normal. The leader of the Austrian garrison then recorded all of this in a letter, sent it to the government in Vienna, and thus was born Europe's vampire obsession. The name taken from vampir or undead in Serbian. Anyway, all of that's a fun story, but it's not the point. This is in the year 106 AD. After 4 years of brutal wars, the Roman army led by the emperor Trajan was finally at the gates of the Dashian capital high in the mountains of Transylvania. Knowing the battle was lost, the great Dashian king Desabalis fell on his sword and that was that. Rome had defeated its greatest rival and taken control of an empire that spanned all of today's Romania and Muldova and parts of Serbia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

[00:32:41]Trajan returned to Rome carrying spoils including 165 tons of gold, 330 tons of silver, and countless jugs of fine wines, and celebrated with what would remain the biggest party in Roman history.

[00:32:55]123 days of public games, feasts, chariot races, and gladiator fights.

[00:33:01]10,000 Dashin survivors forced to die in front of crowds in the new coliseum.

[00:33:06]Anyway, all of this is to say that the Dashin Kingdom was the greatest empire you've probably never heard of. Wealthy and powerful and with a rich mythology, especially a belief that death was nothing to fear. A wonderful afterlife waiting for everyone except for those who died quote unnaturally. They would be doomed to stay here, living on as a so-called restless soul. When the Romans took over, they brought their own mythology, including the story of the Stricks, half man, half owl, sleeping during the day and waking at night to suck the blood of humans. At some point in Transennylvania, these legends would combine. A new story would take shape, melding the behavior of the stricks with the characteristics of the Dashian restless soul. This vampire was thought to be immortal. In early tellings, the stake through the heart was just a method of pinning them to the ground.

[00:33:56]The only real defense, of course, was to keep them at bay using garlic. And I don't need to explain that origin because you already know that everyone was using garlic to fight off anything.

[00:34:07]To not use garlic would have been crazy.

[00:34:10]Now, the Romanians didn't call them vampires. That word doesn't show up in any stories until after some Serbian farmers shouted it at the corpse of Petar Pleggoyovich. Now, the local term would be stragoi, an adaptation of stricks. And while we could get a whole lot deeper into that subject, this is a video about garlic. So, let's take a break for a Romanian meal.

[00:34:51]About 2 hours driving from Bangkok, there's Southeast Asia's only Romanian restaurant. A place getting some major hype for its authentic homestyle cuisine. And even if there was no Count Dracula, we would still have made this trip because garlic in the Balkans is serious business. The food in Romania might be the closest we can come to a trip back 2,000 years. A living relic of the days under Roman occupation. How the country itself got its name. As a quick refresher, this is Romania. Home to around 19 million people, the seat of government in the old city of Bucharest.

[00:35:29]Once designed and constructed by Vlad the Impaler, the original Count Dracula, Romania is home to mythical vampires and very real giants. Marvel action heroes and the creator of Marvel Stan Lee, second generation Romanian. Anyway, it's a place that deserves more credit in the worldwide culinary pantheon, but that's for another day because Romanian hospitality might send this shoot completely off the rails.

[00:36:22]So, first of all, Chris, so I was telling the crew, we were just talking about this off camera that reading the reviews at this restaurant. We drove all the way to to Pia to eat here and reading the reviews online, everyone's like, "Oh, it's it's like a it's like going to my Romanian grandma's house."

[00:36:35]So, I expected that this was going to be uh we're going to come in. It's a Romanian grandmother. It's you.

[00:36:41]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:36:41]>> But, uh tell me first of all what we'll talk about the dishes in a minute, but first of all, just what is Balkan cuisine? So, Balkcan cuisine actually is the technique of cooking because in our countries we like to to use good good ingredients, good vegetables and and the technique is about slow cooking. It's not a fast food to doing like fast because because all the ingredients, everything when it's staying together for a long time, it gives the flavor. So this is what makes the food very special in our countries.

[00:37:25]The the bad news for me is you know on the menu the first thing listed the most important dish on the menu is cuz this is pate and people like to drink is a hangover cure which is this tripen garlic soup.

[00:37:38]>> But I'm not hung over so thankfully Chris has tried to take care of that. So since we walked in, this glass just never gets emptied. So >> cheers table. Cheers. Yeah, >> in our countries we call it Rakia. We say Norok.

[00:37:55]>> Noro. That is how we say cheers.

[00:37:56]>> J or Nazarian in Macedonia. J in Serbia >> and in Romania Nor.

[00:38:02]>> Nor. Okay. Nor.

[00:38:10]So, perfect.

[00:38:28]>> How do I say thank you?

[00:38:45]Cheers.

[00:38:47]>> This is >> Thank you so much.

[00:38:49]>> Still haven't had a bite of food yet.

[00:38:54]>> It's very smooth though.

[00:38:55]>> How many have you drank so far?

[00:38:57]>> It's my second.

[00:38:58]>> 0.3.

[00:38:59]>> No, I I almost finished the first one and it's the second. Okay, before I lose the ability to speak, let me quickly introduce the food. Um, so going to make this very fast for two reasons. Number one, because I am um about to to black out, and number two, because uh Daria is about to black out for very different reasons. I have not seen you look this excited in a long time.

[00:39:20]>> Can you tell me very quickly, Daria, before we start eating, what is it about Balkan food that's so exciting to you?

[00:39:25]Your eyes lit up when we walked in here.

[00:39:27]Thank you. It's so close to what I have at home. Like you were like we were talking about different cuisines like cuisine, Korean cuisine, anything that is in the forest of Russia. But when we are home, we are cooking this. We're making the meats. We are making the cabbages. We are making these kebabs salads. So this is basically what I have at home >> and vodka.

[00:39:50]>> And vodka instead of raia. I'm gonna just I'm gonna >> not make you wait any longer. Just dive in. Let's see. Oh yeah. Um, in terms of garlic, so the tripe soup that is showcased front and center, but Carol, if you want to grab that camera, I'm going to Do you guys mind if I just put the garlic straight into the soup?

[00:40:07]>> Oh, you're going to put the the full one?

[00:40:08]>> Yeah. Do you guys mind? I mean, this is a garlic shoot.

[00:40:11]>> Um, so I'm going to just go ahead and dump this in.

[00:40:15]>> You ready?

[00:40:16]>> All right. So, here's the garlic now going in. Oh, yeah. All of that into the tripe soup. And this is the hangover cure. We have garlic as a big part of the spice blend for the um sausage. And we have it mixed in slowcooked down with the sausage and the beef here.

[00:40:34]>> Um and yeah, I'm going to ask for bowls so we can share the soup. Just four small bowls.

[00:40:41]>> And um I'm going to start with this cuz this is what ever since yesterday when I started looking at the menu, this sausage dish is what I've been most >> looking forward to. I don't know if I can taste anything after all the raia.

[00:40:53]Five shots. Four. Five. One. Four.

[00:40:57]Oh god.

[00:40:59]Good. Oh my god. That's so good.

[00:41:04]Smoky.

[00:41:06]Thank you. This is so good.

[00:41:08]>> The meat just falls apart. That's so good. You get the smoke, the garlic, the onion. Like Yeah. That's sensational.

[00:41:17]>> Have it with alcohol. It's also like it goes >> I've had everything with alcohol.

[00:41:20]There's my entire alcohol is coming out of my pores right now.

[00:41:38]>> This is outstanding.

[00:41:39]>> You tried this? This is I'm I'm a very happy guy right now. Let's >> see if after a couple of shots of rachia if some of the trite uh helps me sober up again >> or at least kills the looming hangover.

[00:41:54]>> No, no, that's exactly that's not for that reason. That's like it's very soothing. It's going to be very nice.

[00:42:04]>> Go.

[00:42:06]>> That's you, I believe.

[00:42:07]>> Yes, of course.

[00:42:09]>> This is great. God should never be empty. Cheers, guys.

[00:42:51]When the Roman Empire empire fell in the fifth century AD. It was cataclysmic for society, but also for garlic because the Germanic tribes that began sweeping across Europe had no use for the stuff.

[00:43:03]Now, this doesn't mean that they didn't like garlic. They did, just not these.

[00:43:09]See, Europe and pretty much everywhere was and is covered in plenty of garlic relatives, cousins that were already used in cuisine. The Germanic people had a preference for aliium ursinum, what we now call wild garlic or ramssons, native to the forests of northern and eastern Europe. The southern part of the continent preferred field garlic or aliium vigniali. Now, I'm going to make this fast because we need to get back to the history, but if you remember that split 9 million years ago, well, most of our garlic variations are actually types of onions. For example, all of the so-called North American garlic, stuff like meadow garlic from Canada and ramps or American wild garlic, well, they're all actually descended from onions and are not garlic at all. The only exception, the only actual garlic that was ever part of mainstream cuisine, is the so-called aliium empellum, better known as leaks. Leaks are actually garlic. They just evolved in a slightly different direction over the last few million years. They're native to a huge swath of Europe from Portugal all the way to Turkey. And their flavor, kind of like garlic but milder, had long informed the local pallet. Now, we don't know when leaks were introduced to Great Britain, but it was certainly prior to these, which we can assume because when garlic arrived, the local people called it the leak that's shaped like a spear, or in Anglo-Saxon, garlic. Anyway, after the fall of Rome, garlic went out of fashion. still eaten by peasants in Greece and Italy, but across the rest of the continent, more or less forgotten, rejected in favor of leaks. Garlic trade on the Silk Road dried up and the plant seemed to be destined to disappear until out of nowhere came the rise of a new religion and a path of conquest that led right into the garlic fields of Wusbekiststan.

[00:45:02]The very first reference to garlic in Islamic writing echoes the Greeks, Romans, and Indians. The prophet Muhammad declaring the garlic is to be kept far away from any mosques or places of prayer. But as the caliphate swept across the so-called garlic crescent from Iran into the Stan countries, they quickly encountered a problem. There was garlic everywhere and their soldiers really liked it. Just like the Greeks and Romans, it became a vital part of getting ready for battle. But nobody knew if they were violating the will of God. So just 6 years after the start of the Muslim conquests, Muhammad himself issued a clarification saying, and I quote, "Oh people, I cannot forbid a thing which Allah has made lawful. But this garlic is a plant the odor of which I find repugnant." And thus would begin the Muslim compromise. Garlic was halal, but efforts should be made to soften the smell and the harsh flavor. a ruling that would change how garlic would be used in cuisine forever. All across the Muslim world, new recipes would take shape, incorporating lots of garlic, but blended with other ingredients cooked down into sauces and masked or balanced by powerful herbs and spices. As just a few examples, let's look at the very first Arab cookbook written in the 10th century. In those pages, we see garlic sauteed into haresa, a royal stew of wheat and mutton. Garlic would be caramelized along with leaks and onions to form the base of seekbage, then layered in with meat, honey, saffron, dried fruits, and lots of vinegar. And garlic would even win over the prophet Muhammad himself, ground into a paste with coriander and ginger and cooked into a stew called tarid said to be his very favorite dish. And those are just three examples. There are thousands more across the Muslim world. Now, it's not fair to say that the quote softening of garlic was a creation of the Arabs. This had already been practiced for hundreds of years in Central Asia, northern India, and especially Persia, where it was the center of the culinary culture.

[00:47:00]But the Muslim conquest did spread the concept far and wide, and that would have massive ramifications for the future of Western cuisine. Just 6 years after the invasion of Usbekiststan and Kyrgystan, the Arabs would take the Eberian Peninsula, a campaign led by the Berbers of North Africa. As they would everywhere, the Muslims immediately outlawed the use of pork, meaning lard was no longer an option. So, the local people instead turned to olive oil. The entire southern coast from Andalucia to Catalonia covered in olive trees.

[00:47:32]Anyway, at some point in the years of Muslim occupation, we see a fusion begin to take shape. A Persian technique of slowly melting aromatics into oil, adapted to garlic, onion, and olive oil.

[00:47:43]First recorded in the year 1324 under the name sofrito, or gently cooked. So essential would this become that before long it would spread across the region, used as the flagship cooking technique across Spain and Portugal, inspiring the category of provincial cuisine in southern France, and even giving rise to the classic French mira. Although garlic was dropped by the cooks in Paris because old stigmas die hard. A 100 years after taking control of the Iberian Peninsula, the Arabs would launch another offensive into Western Europe. This time conquering the island of Sicily and parts of Pulia and Calabria. They'd introduce the concept of Sophrito directly adapted from Moorish Spain. and Sicilian chefs would create an entirely new flavor profile. A garlic-based sauce of vinegar, citrus, sugar, and wine known simply as sweet and sour or agra dolce. In Italy, the old Persian technique of softening garlic, the so-called garlic exception would become an art form. Wealthy households who loved the taste of garlic but didn't want the social stigma began throwing it into dishes alongside the most expensive stuff. saffron and nutmeg, exotic meats and rare delicacies. This would come to be known as enobling garlic. In other words, transforming a peasant food into something socially acceptable. The most famous advocates of this idea would be the Medici family, which spread the upper class version of garlic to the French royal court, then all across the continent just in time for the age of exploration. And while we need to get into that part of the story, maybe that is best told over a break for our next meal.

[00:49:40]Welcome to IO Italian Osteria, one of the most prestigious Italian restaurants in all of Southeast Asia. The latest in a four decade long portfolio under the guidance of Chef Anna Barasi, originally from Naples. Chef Anna is a celebrity in the world of Neapolitan cuisine. But today, we're here to meet another part of IO's creative team, her son-in-law, Luis Bedas, himself an acclaimed chef, a food historian, and a native of Portugal. And along with a few of the restaurant signatures, Chef Louise is also going to make us some homestyle Portuguese garlic delicacies.

[00:50:29]When Christopher Columbus sailed across the ocean in 1492, his ship was stocked with just an astonishing amount of garlic. required not just because it stayed fresh longer than other vegetables, but because the strong flavor helped cover up the other rations, rotting meat, and hard, moldy bread. There used to be a joke told by sailors that if you came upon a Spanish or Portuguese fleet somewhere out in the water, you could smell them before they appeared on the horizon because of all the garlic. And while that might be an exaggeration, what is true is that both would plant garlic in the new world right away. the Spanish introducing garlic to the Caribbean and the Portuguese cultivating it in South America. It wasn't meant as a cash crop, just a way to make sure there was always enough to restock for the long sail back to Europe.

[00:51:23]It isn't just garlic that would spread with the Spanish and Portuguese.

[00:51:27]Garlic-based dishes would follow their path as well. For the Portuguese, the most famous example was a meal of pork preserved in white wine and garlic.

[00:51:36]Carne de vignya deallo was the dish of naval officers. And in the port of Goa, it would be adapted into what's now called vindaloo. And then there's Esabesh, native to Spain, brought by the Arabs as sikbage, which as we already mentioned, probably started in ancient Persia. Esabesh would come along to Spanish colonies like the Philippines.

[00:51:57]And we could keep going, but it's time to eat chef. Uh, hello.

[00:52:23]>> I'm very excited to have a chance to come here and film. I'm going to be very fast talking to you because this smells incredible and I want to eat it while it's warm.

[00:52:31]>> Yeah, you should. You should.

[00:52:32]>> Um, so you are from the coast of Portugal. Your wife is Italian. You have an Italian restaurant. So, this is kind of a a blend. We have a couple dishes off your menu and then we have a couple of dishes that remind you of home.

[00:52:45]>> Yes.

[00:52:45]>> So, let's let's start, I guess. Just tell me what we have on the table.

[00:52:48]>> Okay. So, we start with the the Portuguese dishes. So basically this um assort which is from Alentejo area my father's area and this is for example is normally the my uh Christmas day lunch because on the east the day before we cook the cot so with the water with the stock we make this uh this soup which was a a peasant soup from the when they go to the to the countryside to take care of the sheep. Uh they would have a bit of stale bread, some eggs, something easy to carry that doesn't spoil uh without the fridge. And then just with some fire, just boil water with a bit of salted cod to infuse >> and garlic.

[00:53:30]>> And then the base is um coriander, olive oil, garlic and salt. We do kind of a a piso, we call it piso, which is just crush basically. Then we cut the stale bread, some poach eggs, and the hot liquid on top, which is now a bit soaked, but that's the idea.

[00:53:46]>> Okay. And it's we normally use with our sourdough, Portuguese sourdough. So it's very um vinegared like uh taste after the >> All right, let's uh >> then you have the the clams. It's a very traditional Portuguese recipe called bulon from the the region next to my house about 20 minutes from my from my house but now it's spread all over Portugal.

[00:54:10]So is the same base as well. Garlic, olive oil, uh coriander and lemon.

[00:54:15]That's it. and bif and we just open on the natural uh with the juices of the clams. So very easy uh recipe, very simple. Then moving on to to Italy. So we have the bura bura that we import of course from from Italy together with our puto some >> not not a garlic based dish. We just wanted something green to figure >> just to clear the problem.

[00:54:39]>> Just to clear Exactly. This is this is our salad. Pay no attention to the meat and cheese. It's it's a salad still. Um and then we have the >> then we have the pasta aolio which is the traditional pasta that you eat after midnight when you come from the clubs or the discos whatever with a bit of hangover or not. It's uh that dish that all Italians know how to do and very simple. Just chili, garlic, olive oil, a bit of parsley. That's it. And then we have the fetuccini um with ragu. Ragu in this case Bologni style because of course Italy is a very uh swenerish country. It's it's full of different countries. It's one of the countries with more regions and more distinctive regions. Sometimes 5 kilometers is enough to change the whole recipe. So of course my mother-in-law, she's from Napoli. In Napoli they do the ragu a bit different. Always be the base of sufrito where the garlic uh can or not come.

[00:55:37]That's one of the differences between uh for example our rfugado and the sufrito Italian that uh we normally uh don't put the aromatics. Our rafugado is just olive oil, garlic and onion which is something that not all regions of Italy mix. Um the sufto is a bit more uh Frenchbased with aromatics like the mirua. So the the the carrot, the the onion, the celery, all of those aromatics. they start the base and um and then the meat is uh is cooked on tomato sauce.

[00:56:14]>> So I started this video in the very beginning um with uh just quick story from my first time working in a Sichuan kitchen when I was working in Chinese food for the first time. And you don't think about Chinese food, Sichuan food, anything as as being garlic based cuisine. But my first job, what the chef assigned to me was just [ __ ] prep the garlic all day. Like here's your here's your mountain of garlic we need for every dish, right? You don't look at a dish that's Sichuan typically see it, >> right? Nobody talks about it. You don't say, "Wow, that garlic was great."

[00:56:45]>> But it's in everything and if you take it out, you notice.

[00:56:48]>> Can you tell me about that in terms of Portuguese, Spanish, Italian cuisine, you know?

[00:56:51]>> Yeah. In Portugal is is very evident. Of course, the garlic uh changes as well depending on how we cut it change their flavors. So we can start with a whole clove just crush aromatize olive oil like mainly they do in in Italy just to aromatize and then they discard. Um then you can slice it becomes a bit more potent but um but still quite strong uh uh flavor or you can mince which is the where you get more potent of of the garlic itself. So, but in Portugal, we really like to to to crush and to to eat the the pieces of garlic. Uh it's something that it's very >> I like that too.

[00:57:34]>> Yeah. And of course, when you roast when the big cloves when you do a roast on a Sunday or whatever, you know, that caramelized garlic that comes from inside to do that paste, uh it's uh it's a it's a joy.

[00:57:46]>> That was s one technique that I learned from that restaurant that I took with me forever is you use the garlic to season the oil. So the oil gets nice and garicky. You take it out, hold it to the side, and just put it on top of anything.

[00:57:58]>> Just keep it there. When the dish is done, just take that crispy garlic and throw it on top. And it's going to make everything better.

[00:58:03]>> It's one of the things I I love the most. My staff here, I'm always eating the the stuff food here because he's amazing. And in Thai, you know, the small garlic when they fry >> fresh on everything. It's such the secret to Thai food. I'm going to let you go. I've been game planning. I've been paying attention to you, but I've also been secretly kind of game planning what order I'm going to go to eat this.

[00:58:21]Do you have any suggestion? I think this needs to be eaten first because it's >> it's already soaked and the clams and then >> we'll work our way through these and we already can just have the baratha while I work my way through all of this stuff and then chef what a beautiful restaurant. Thank you so much for having us.

[00:58:35]>> Thank you very much. And uh anytime you want to step here here or in Paya we have another one in Paya and the other one in Ansar hotel as well. So we are around anytime. Will be a pleasure to have you here. Great.

[00:58:47]>> Thank you very much. Thank you. Cheers.

[00:58:49]I'm going to dive in.

[00:58:51]All right. Forgive me for not doing much more of an of an intro. We have to crack in while this is still warm.

[00:59:08]>> This is so good.

[00:59:10]>> Like everything on the table looks incredible. I could just have this for myself. It's so like warm and comforting and garlicky. time. And the pushed egg is just perfect.

[00:59:22]>> The best three words, warm and comforting and garicky.

[00:59:43]>> This is delicious. I'm going to make this quick so Dennis gets to eat this while it's warm, too. I need to leave some for Dennis.

[00:59:49]>> I need to leave some of that. Um, >> I shouldn't talk too much about it because it's not on the menu at this restaurant. That's a home dish for Chef.

[00:59:56]Yeah. Yeah. This is a This is an Italian restaurant and that is a Portuguese dish. But that is on the menu and that is spectacular. You've never had clams before? You've never had a clam in your life?

[01:00:13]>> And I've probably had clams. I just don't know how to eat clams again. I I think it's like pistachio. So I just drop them in my mouth and just >> No, you take the >> You're going to put the whole the You're going to put the whole shell in it. Just like >> All right, let's uh while Daria works out how to eat a clam. We're going to cut on audio and just enjoy the uh enjoy the meal. Dennis, please come join us.

[01:00:39]>> All right, Daria, let me walk you through this. So here's here's the process. Okay, here's a clam. Mhm. Take it out with your fork.

[01:00:45]>> Fork.

[01:00:47]>> That's it.

[01:00:48]>> Eat it.

[01:00:48]>> That's it.

[01:00:49]>> Mhm.

[01:00:51]>> And then take the shell and put it in here.

[01:00:55]>> That was the entire clam eating process, beginning to end.

[01:00:59]>> I don't need to put it like in bread or something.

[01:01:02]>> You can. I mean, you can soak. We have bread here to soak in the cool.

[01:01:07]>> All right, Dennis, come eat while it's warm. This is so good.

[01:01:16]If you remember in our video about the history of pork in China during the years of the Ming dynasty, a massive amount of deforestation led to a lack of firewood, which meant that food would have to be cooked more quickly, hence stir frying. Now, until that time, garlic in China had been a relatively minor ingredient, highly valued in traditional medicine, but less common in cuisine than their own native variety, what they referred to as swan. At first, the Chinese called the Silk Road version hwan or the garlic of the barbarians.

[01:01:46]But in time, that would become daan, big garlic. The native version recristened as small garlic, xiawan. And both of those names are still around to the present. Anyway, the problem with stir frying versus the old techniques of stewing and brazing is that there was less time to develop much flavor. But garlic proved a game-changing solution.

[01:02:07]See, it turns out that tossed into hot oil, garlic transforms immediately, taking on a rich complexity and in the process seasoning the oil, turning something as simple as a stir-fried vegetable into a vibrant and flavorful delicacy. But that wasn't the only reason that Dasuan took over China. At some point, someone figured out that garlic was absolutely perfect for intercropping with rice. This was astonishingly simple and enormously useful. When rice was harvested, garlic could be planted right away in the same soil without tilling or plowing the field. The plant would recycle nutrients in the ground and then be ready for harvest exactly when it was time to throw the rice back in. And so the cycle would go, giving farmers so much garlic that they could use it for cooking and sell the rest, increasing the income of the peasant class. It wouldn't take long before garlic was all across the continent, spread side by side along with stir frying and garlic crops were introduced to the highlands of Thailand, Lao, and Vietnam. But not the Southeast Asian islands. It was already beloved in the Malay archipelago, introduced about 100 years earlier by Muslim traders arriving in port at Java and then Mala.

[01:03:17]Those traders came from India at the time under the Mughal Empire, a Muslim dynasty with ties to Persia founded by Babur who was from Usuzbekiststan. In other words, Mughal India was a perfect storm of garlic and their own innovations would increase the presence of garlic in the subcontinent and beyond. See the rich Mooghike curries spped up of course with garlic naan. In the Philippines, garlic has an ancient history as far back as the maritime silk road. It was used as a medicine. But its entrance into mainstream cuisine comes with the arrival of the Spanish and the adoption of sophrito referred to in Galog as Giza and forming the backbone of everything from the modern caldera to pinch to a thousand forms of pansip or stir-fried noodles. And the Columbian exchange would also play a major role in the use of garlic in Korea. The introduction of chili peppers in the 1600s, transforming kimchi, which had been a simple dish of salted cucumbers, leaks, or root vegetables, into what we know today. The local people realized that a combination of garlic and ground chili made such a strong preservative that they could drastically reduce the use of salt, which was prohibitively expensive. And just like that, kimchi was accessible to every home and family and well on its way to becoming the national dish. By the end of the 17th century, nearly every single corner of the Asian continent from India to Usbekiststan to Indonesia was all using garlic in everyday cuisine. Every country except for one, the country of Japan. Basically, around the 7th century AD, a new sect of Buddhism spread through East Asia, preaching acetism and enforcing restrictions on diet, banning alcohol, meat, and the so-called five pungent roots. Garlic, chives, onions, shallots, and leaks. Theoretically, at least for the roots, the reason was that strong tastes and smells were said to be distracting to anyone who was seeking enlightenment. Anyway, for a while, this would be the standard Mahayana diet, but people like meat and liquor. So soon enough it would be limited to monasteries and temples. The new rules only applying to monks except in Japan.

[01:05:23]In Japanese culture, the whole idea of cracking down on strong flavors made sense. The cuisine already valued subtlety and fresh ingredients. Mahayana Buddhism would blend with the local Shinto faith into a uniquely Japanese religion and garlic was very much forbidden. And then Japan would close its doors to the outside world for the next 1,200 years. And the garlic ban was never lifted. Garlic would not be accepted into Japanese cuisine until after World War II. Introduced by soldiers coming back from Manuria and cooking a style of dumplings made in a northern Chinese style, becoming in Japan what we now call guzza. But in a very strange twist of fate, by the time Japan found garlic in the US, it was a Japanese person who ran the entire industry. This is Koshi Harasaki, better known as Jimmy the California garlic king. Jimmy Hiroasaki was born in Kumamoto in 1900, immigrating to the US at the age of 14 and working as a laborer on carrot and onion farms.

[01:06:22]Within a few years, he'd saved up enough money to buy a plot of land in Santa Clara County, south of Santa Cruz. And while at first he made a living selling vegetable seeds, things would take a turn when he started growing garlic.

[01:06:35]See, this was right around the time that waves of Italian immigrants were heading west and moving to the region, and garlic was in demand. His farm would grow to 500 acres. And then in the 1930s, he'd partner with a chili powder company called Gentry Foods to begin producing dehydrated garlic, mainly sold as garlic powder. This would become a sensation. More farmers would move in, and by the middle of the century, Gilroy, California, was the garlic capital of the US. Anyway, let's get back to the story.

[01:07:15]In 1720, the bubanic plague struck in Marseilles in southern France. With the entire city gripped by death and disease, the people sheltered in their homes, terrified to even breathe the same air as any potential carriers. With the streets empty, a group of four friends who happen to be herbalists decided to take advantage of the situation and began a campaign of robbing everyone. They broke into infected houses, dug up wealthy corpses, and after 2 years, they were finally caught red-handed, literally taking the gold off of some poor victim. Given how brazen their crimes had been, the men at first were sentenced to die by the execution wheel, which is even less fun than it sounds. But the judges quickly became far more interested in how they'd managed to go all of this time without getting infected. That should have been impossible. So, the thieves worked a deal. In exchange for giving up their secrets, they would be set free. The men revealed that whenever they went outside, they would cover themselves head to toe in a mixture of vinegar, sage, lavender, rosemary, and a huge amount of crushed garlic. The judges wrote down the recipe and hung it on the walls of Marseilles so everyone could copy this formula. And by 1748, four thieves vinegar was an officially recognized anti-plague medicine. Now, is this story true? Who knows? But what is definitely true is that in 1898, science definitively proved that the plague had been spread by fleas and four thieves vinegar would have actually worked. The garlic keeping the fleas from biting and the combination of garlic with herbs forming a potent disinfectant and antimicrobial. As far back as the 1850s, Louisie Pasture ran experiments on garlic, proving that raw garlic juice was incredibly effective at knocking out even the most infectious bacteria. And during the First World War, garlic was utilized by field medics on both sides as an antibacterial agent to help treat injuries. By the dawn of World War II, advanced medicine was now available, but supplies were limited and whatever stock the Soviets had was destroyed pretty much immediately when the Nazis invaded.

[01:09:16]Enter a Mr. Boris Token, a biologist locked up in Stalin's purges of academics, but released just in time for the arrival of war. And he offered a solution. Mr. Token had run his own experiments, validating pastures research, and at his insistence, the Soviets mobilized their entire agricultural force to grow an almost endless supply of garlic. By the end of 1942, soldiers were being fed rations of garlic with every meal to help boost immunity. and garlic juice was poured directly on any open wounds as an antiseptic. It's estimated that more than 13 million Soviet troops were treated with garlic. And while we don't know how many lives were saved, historians guess it's in the high hundreds of thousands. And garlic would earn the nickname Russian penicellin.

[01:10:02]Now, part of the reason this was needed is that for a long time, the Russians didn't have real penicellin. That formula was guarded by the West, too important to share with the rival communists. But more than one side could play this game. See, the Soviets had something else that the Western world wanted, and they had no motivation to share. See, if you remember from the very beginning of this video, garlic outside Central Asia must be cultivated by hand. And planting a clove underground is by definition cloning.

[01:10:30]So, for nearly all of history, the Europeans and Americans had just one type of garlic. That's it. For nearly the entire 20th century, Western agricultural companies begged the Soviet Union to grant access to Usuzbekiststan, Kyrgystan, Turk Menistan, and Tajjighstan, and always the answer was no. Enjoy your degenerate capitalist culture and basic garlic. Finally, in 1989, with Soviet on the edge of collapse, the USDA was allowed in, escorted by a military convoy and blindfolded during all transit, brought from village to village in Central Asia and buying up specimens. And that is how just about every highquality garlic varietal entered the global marketplace.

[01:11:11]And by that time, it actually was a global marketplace. At the beginning of the 1950s, when the post-war economy started to boom, average British citizens, for the first time ever, had the means to start traveling internationally, waves of holiday makers began descending on Spain and France and the Italian coast, coming back to the UK wondering why their food didn't taste as interesting. So garlic for the first time entered the British culinary lexicon with help from Elizabeth David, a chef and food writer who promoted continental cuisine and garlic specifically. In the United States, garlic had long been eaten in the Italian and Greek communities. But beyond that, it took until the 1960s.

[01:11:51]Also, thanks to a celebrity chef, in our case, Julia Child, single-handedly credited with kicking off the American garlic revolution with her advocacy of French culinary techniques. The US was still not the last to the party. Well into the 1970s, garlic was widely unknown in Australia until Mediterranean cuisine became fashionable and new fusion dishes were introduced like Aussie style garlic prawns. And finally, last but not least, there is Scandinavia, the world's final garlic holdout. In Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, it would take until the 1990s for the dam to break. And the trigger of all things would be a new tradition known as Cozy Friday. After work at the end of the week, it became a trend for friends and family to get together to make tacos and watch TV. Imported taco seasoning would take off, and at long last, garlic had reached every single corner of the planet. It was a long journey. From the mountains of Central Asia to the medicine cabinets of ancient Egypt, garlic fueled the Roman army, protected us from vampires, and completely changed how we view food. It has directly saved more lives than just about any other ingredient, fighting off mythical demons and very real disease, and it still goes unnoticed. Maybe it's not the star of the show. Maybe no one goes to a restaurant asking for garlic, but take it away and our whole culinary world collapses, or at least doesn't taste as good. So, for one last meal, we might as well finish with a little bit of Sichuan, the food that got me into cooking. But thankfully this time someone else gets to chop the garlic. So long Subscribe to the channel for more from otr. Thank you so much to everyone who supports us on Patreon. It really helps to keep us going. Find links below to our Patreon and social media, and we'll see you soon.

[01:14:41]Heat.

[01:15:00]Heat.