Chinese Garlic Stems

Also garlic flower sterns, green garlic, suan tai (Chinese), shen sum (Korean)

I am going to reveal one of those “hot” tips that the food media invent daily, but this one is true: There is a vegetable poised to take over the United States! If ever there was a healthy “new” edible destined to delight contemporary foodies, this is it. Redolent of garlic, crunchy, sweet, and juicy, it requires no more than slicing to ready it for cooking; it takes just minutes to cook; it looks bright and fresh on the plate; and it’s low in calories (like all greens, of course). The hitch is that I seem to be one of only a handful of people who can locate it or identify it. But now that you’ve seen the photo, perhaps you can, too. (Do not be misled by curled garlic at farmers’ markets and fancy groceries, which can be inedibly fibrous. Chinese garlic stems are straight and tall, not curled.)