"Garlic weaves a colorful, engaging story about one of the world's timeless ingredients--perfect for food lovers, devoted eaters, and readers of culinary narrative. Garlic is the Lord Byron of produce, a lusty rogue that charms and seduces you, but runs off before dawn leaving a bad taste in your mouth. Called everything from "rustic cure-all" to "Russian penicillin," "Bronx vanilla," and "Italian perfume," garlic has been loved, worshiped, and despised throughout history. Robin Cherry's Garlic is an "edible biography" of one of the foundational ingredients of world cooking. While this book does not claim that garlic saved civilization (though it might cure whatever ails you), it does take us on a grand tour of garlic's fascinating role in history, medicine, literature, and art; its controversial role in bigotry, mythology, and superstition; and its indispensable contribution to the great cuisines of the world. But just to make sure the appetite doesn't feel slighted, over 75 recipes that feature garlic are included too, from Italy's Pasta Aglio Olio to China's Good Fortune Garlic Lettuce. Garlic is a compelling story about an elemental, earthy, and rustic food with truly deep roots"--