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Because of its wide cultivation, its origins are uncertain; it has been traced to both southwest Siberia and Sicily, where it grows wild. It is related to onions and lilies. The domesticated garlic plant does not produce seeds, but is grown from bulbs. These bulbs, whose segments are usually called "cloves" by cooks, are the part of the plant most commonly eaten, though some cooks also use the early spring shoots.

(A common error of beginning cooks is to misinterpret the word "clove" as meaning the entire garlic bulb, rather than one of its segments, thereby wildly exaggerating the amount of garlic in a recipe.)

Garlic is most often used as a seasoning or condiment, and is believed to have some medicinal value[1], notably against hypertension. When crushed or finely chopped it yields allicin, a powerful antibiotic and anti-fungal compound.

It has long, narrow, flat, obscurely keeled leaves, a deciduous spathe, and a globose umbel of whitish flowers, among which are small bulbils. The bulb has membranous scales, in the axils of which are 10 or 12 cloves, or smaller bulbs. From these new bulbs can be procured by planting out in late winter or early spring.

The bulbs are best preserved hung in a dry place. If of fair size, twenty of them weigh about 1 lb. To prevent the plant from running to leaf, Pliny (Nat. Hist. xix. 34) advised bending the stalk downward and covering with earth; seeding, he observes, may be prevented by twisting the stalk. (By "seeding", he mostly likely means the development of small, less potent bulbs.)

Garlic is cultivated in the same manner as the shallot. It is stated to have been grown in England before the year 1548. The percentage composition of the bulbs is given by E. Solly (Trans. Hon. Soc. Loud., new ser., iii. p. 60) as water 84.09, organic matter 13.38, and inorganic matter 1.53--that of the leaves being water 87.14, organic matter 11.27 and inorganic matter 1.59.

The bulb has a strong and characteristic odor and an acrid taste, and yields an offensively smelling oil, essence of garlic, identical with allyl sulphide (C₆H₁₀S₂). This, when garlic has been eaten, is evolved by the excretory organs, the activity of which it promotes. When eaten in quantity, garlic may be strongly evident in the diner's sweat the following day. The well-known phenomenon of "garlic breath" can be alleviated by eating fresh parsley and this is included in many garlic recipes.

From the earliest times garlic has been used as an article of diet. It formed part of the food of the Israelites in EgyptJumhuriyat Misr al-Arabiyah ( In Detail) Official language Arabic Capital Cairo Largest City Cairo President Hosni Mubarak Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif Area Total % water Ranked 29th 1,001,450 km² 0. 6% Population Total (2003) Density Ranked 15th 74,718,797 (Numb. xi. 5) and of the labourers employed by CheopsKhufu's Cartouche Khufu (in Greek known as Cheops was a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom. He reigned from around 2589 BC to 2566 BC. He was the son of King Sneferu and Queen Hetepheres II and, unlike his father, was remembered as a cruel and ruthles in the construction of his pyramidThe Great Pyramid of Giza (sometimes spelled Gizeh is the oldest and last remaining of the Seven Wonders of the World and the most famous pyramid in the world. It is presumed to have served as the tomb of the Fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu (also kn. Garlic is still grown in Egypt, where, however, the Syrian is the kind most esteemed (see Rawlinson's Herodotus, 2.125).

It was largely consumed by the ancient GreekAncient Greece is the term used to describe the Greek-speaking world in ancient times. It refers not only to the territory of the present Greek state, but also to those areas settled in ancient times by Greeks: Cyprus, the Aegean coast of Turkey (then kno and Roman soldiers, sailors and rural classes (cf. Virg. Ed. ii. II), and, as Pliny tells us (N.H. xix. 32), by the AfricaAfrica is the world's second-largest continent in both area and population, after Asia. 30,244,050 km2 (11,677,240 mi2) including the islands, it covers 20. 3% of the total land area on Earth, and with over 800 million human inhabitants it accounts for arn peasantry. GalenClaudius Galenus of Pergamum ( 131- 201 AD), better known as Galen was an ancient Greek physician. His views dominated European medicine for over a thousand years. Life Galen was born in Pergamum (modern-day Bergama, Turkey) to an architect's family. eulogizes it as the "rustic's theriac" (cure-all) (see F Adams's Paulus Aegineta, p. 99), and Alexander Neckam, a writer of the 12th century (see Wright's edition of his works, p. 473, 1863), recommends it as a palliative of the heat of the sun in field labor.

"The people in places where the simoon is frequent," says Mountstuart Elphinstone (An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, p. 140, 1815), "eat garlic, and rub their lips and noses with it, when they go out in the heat of the summer, to prevent their suffering by the simoon." "O dura messorum ilia," exclaims Horace (Epod. iii.), as he records his detestation of the popular esculent, to smell of which was accounted a sign of vulgarity (cf. Shakespeare, Coriol. iv. 6, and Meas. for Meas. Iii. 2).

Garlic was rare in traditional English cookery, and a much more common ingredient in southern Europe. Garlic was placed by the ancient Greeks on the piles of stones at cross-roads, as a supper for Hecate ( Theophrastus, Characters, l~.eunbcuuoviac); and according to Pliny garlic and onions were invoked as deities by the Egyptians at the taking of oaths. The inhabitants of Pelusium in lower Egypt, who worshipped the onion, are said to have held both it and garlic in aversion as food. Garlic possesses stimulant and stomachic properties, and was of old, as still sometimes now, employed as a medicinal remedy.

Pliny (N.H. xx. 23) gives an exceedingly long list of complaints in which it was considered beneficial. Dr T Sydenham valued it as an application in confluent smallpox, and, says Cullen (Mat. Med. ii. p. 174, 1789), found some dropsies cured by it alone. Early in the 20th century, it was sometimes used in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis or phthisis.

In the United States, Gilroy, California promotes itself as "Garlic Capital of the World."

The wild "crow garlic" and "field garlic" of Britain are the species Allium vineale and A. oleraceum, respectively.

The term "Wild Garlic" is now used to refer to ramsons (Allium ursinum).

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911 Britannica