Garlic is easy to grow and can be grown year-round in mild climates. In cold climates, cloves can be planted in the ground about six weeks before the soil freezes, and harvested in late spring. Garlic plants are not attacked by pests. They can suffer from pink root, a disease that stunts the roots and turns them pink or red. Garlic plants can be grown close together, leaving enough room for the bulbs to mature, and are easily grown in containers of sufficient depth.

Garlic is widely used around the world for its pungent flavor, as a seasoning or condiment. The flavour varies in intensity and aroma with cooking methods. It is often paired with onion, tomato, or ginger. The parchment-like skin is much like the skin of an onion, and is typically removed before using in raw or cooked form. An alternative is to cut the top off the bulb, coat cloves of garlic by dribbling olive oil (or other oil based seasoning) over them and roast them in the oven. The garlic softens and can be extracted from the cloves by squeezing the (root) end of the bulb or individually by squeezing one end of the clove.

Oils are often flavored with garlic cloves. Commercially prepared oils are widely available, but when preparing garlic-infused oil at home, there is a risk of botulism if the product is not stored properly. To reduce this risk, the oil should be refrigerated and used within one week. Manufacturers add acids and/or other chemicals to eliminate the risk of botulism in their products.[5]

In Chinese cuisine, the young bulbs are pickled for 3–6 weeks in a mixture of sugar, salt and spices. In Russia and the Caucasus, the shoots are pickled and eaten as an appetizer.

It is widely used with kebabs, mezes and various meals in Turkish cuisine.

Immature scapes are tender and edible. They are also known as 'garlic spears', 'stems', or 'tops'. Scapes generally have a milder taste than cloves. They are often used in stir frying or prepared like asparagus. Garlic leaves are a popular vegetable in many parts of Asia, particularly Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian and Korean cuisines. The leaves are cut, cleaned and then stir-fried with eggs, meat, or vegetables.

Garlic is essential to several Mediterranean dishes. Mixing garlic with eggs and olive oil produces aioli ("garlic and oil" in Provençal). The Spanish variant does not use eggs. Garlic, oil, and a chunky base produce skordalia (from the Greek and Italian names of garlic). Blending garlic, almond, oil and soaked bread produces ajoblanco (ajo blanco is Spanish for "white garlic"). Le Tourin is a French garlic soup.

In Asia, garlic is fundamental to Korean and Thai cuisine. In Chinese cuisine, it is usually chopped and stir-fried with chopped ginger and other aromatics in oil as the basis of sauces. Japanese cuisine uses very little garlic.

From the earliest times garlic has been used as a food. It formed part of the diet of the Israelites in Egypt (Numbers 11:5) and of the labourers employed by Khufu in constructing the pyramid. Garlic is still grown in Egypt, but the Syrian variety is the kind most esteemed now (see Rawlinson's Herodotus, 2.125).

It was consumed by the ancient Greek and Roman soldiers, sailors and rural classes (Virgil, Ecologues ii. 11), and, according to Pliny the Elder (Natural History xix. 32), by the African peasantry. Galen 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.

In his Natural History Pliny gives an exceedingly long list of scenarios in which it was considered beneficial (N.H. xx. 23). 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.


Harvesting garlic, from Tacuinum sanitatis, 15th century (Bibliothèque nationale)Garlic was rare in traditional English cuisine (though it is said to have been grown in England before 1548), and has been a much more common ingredient in Mediterranean Europe. Garlic was placed by the ancient Greeks on the piles of stones at cross-roads, as a supper for Hecate (Theophrastus, Characters, The Superstitious Man); and according to Pliny, garlic and onions were invoked as deities by the Egyptians at the taking of oaths. (Pliny also states that garlic de-magnetizes loadstones, which is not factual.)[7] The inhabitants of Pelusium in lower Egypt, who worshipped the onion, are said to have had an aversion to both onions and garlic as food.

To prevent the plant from running to leaf, Pliny (N.H. xix. 34) advised bending the stalk downward and covering with earth; seeding, he observes, may be prevented by twisting the stalk (by "seeding", he most likely means the development of small, less potent bulbs).