Garlic

Fresh garlic (Allium sativum) is fresh garlic the world around—that hard, white bulb with its papery outer skin and its tough inner skin protecting a pungent flesh—“the stinking rose” that has caused great schisms between herbalists and country folk who believe in its magic powers and more up-tight sorts who fear its various potencies. In China, where food and medicine were tightly interwoven, garlic was considered simultaneously a tonic and a seasoning, scorned only by religious groups like the Buddhists who considered it one of the five impure things to eat (literally, The Five Chaoses). It is especially prevalent in northern and central Chinese cooking, the regional cuisines I like best, and is revered for its “warming” qualities.