garlic Allium sativum, the most powerfully flavoured member of the onion family, and an indispensable ingredient in many cuisines and dishes. Its cloves, of which a bulb contains six to more than two dozen, have little smell when whole but release a notoriously strong one when crushed. The question whether it is socially acceptable for people to give off this smell, as they do when they have eaten garlic, has been controversial in various parts of the world since the beginning of historical times.
