From the earliest times, in fact, garlic has been used in cooking. Theophrastus relates that garlic was placed by the ancient Greeks on the piles of stones at crossroads as a supper for Hecate, and according to Pliny, garlic and onion were invocated as deities by the Egyptians at the taking of oaths.
It was largely consumed by the ancient Greeks and Romans, as we can read in Virgil's Eclogues. Horace, however, records his "detestation" of garlic -- the smell of which, even in his days (as much later in Shakespeare's time), was regarded as a sign of vulgarity. He calls it "more poisonous than hemlock" and tells how he was made ill by eating it at the table of Maecenas. Among the ancient Greeks, those who partook of it were not allowed to enter the temples of Cybele. Homer, however, tells us that it was to the virtues of the "yellow garlic" that Ulysses owed his escape from being changed by Circe into a pig, like each of his companions. Homer also makes garlic part of the entertainment that Nestor served up to his guest Machaon.
There's a Mohammedan legend that "when Satan stepped out from the Garden of Eden after the fall of man, Garlick sprang up from the spot where he placed his left foot, and Onion from that where his right foot touched." There's also an interesting superstition in some parts of Europe that, if athletes running a race chew a clove, it'll prevent their competitors from overtaking them. Similarly, Hungarian jockeys sometimes used to fasten a clove of garlic to the bits of their horses in the belief that any others running close behind would fall back the instant they smelled the pungent odor.
Kitchen
MedicineAlexander Neckam, a writer in the 12th century, recommends it as a palliative for "the heat of the sun in field labor," and a book of travel written by Mountstuart Elphinstone nearly 200 years ago, states that "the people in places where the Simoon [a hot sand-laden wind] is frequent eat garlic and rub their lips and noses with it when they go out in the heat of the summer to prevent their suffering from the Simoon."
Garlic is mentioned in several Old English vocabularies of plants from the 10th to the 15th centuries, and is described by the herbalists of the 16th century from William Turner (1548) onward. Garlic is said to have been grown in England before the year 1540. In Cole's Art of Simpling, we are told that cocks fed on garlic are "most stout to fight, and 50 are horses," and that if a garden is infested with moles, garlic (or leeks) will make them "leap out of the ground presently."
In olden days, garlic was employed as a specific for leprosy. It was also believed that it was a cure for smallpox, if cut in small pieces and applied to the soles of the feet in a linen cloth, renewed daily.
It formed the principal ingredient in "Four Thieves' Vinegar," used successfully at Marseilles for protection against the plague when it arrived there in 1722. This originated, it is said, with four thieves who confessed that while protected by the liberal use of aromatic garlic vinegar during the plague, they plundered the dead bodies of its victims in complete safety.
It was reported that during an outbreak of infectious fever in poor quarters of London early in the 19th Century, the French priests who constantly used garlic in all their dishes visited the worst cases with impunity, while the English clergy caught the infection and in many instances fell victims to the disease.The use of garlic as an antiseptic was in great demand during World War I. In 1916, the U.K. government asked for tons of the bulbs, offering a shilling a pound for as much as could be produced. As each pound generally represents about 20 bulbs, and five pounds divided up into cloves and planted will yield about 38 pounds at the end of the growing season, garlic was a remunerative crop.
Mrs. Beeton (in an old 1866 edition of her Household Management) gives the following recipe for making "Bengal Mango Chutney", which she states was given "by a native to an English lady who had long been a resident in India, and who since her return to England had become quite celebrated amongst her friends for the excellence of this Eastern relish":
"Ingredients. 1 1/2 lbs. moist sugar, 3/4 lb. salt, 1/4 lb. Garlic, 1/4 lb. onions, 3/4 lb. powdered Ginger, 1/4 lb. dried chilies, 3/4 lb. dried mustard-seed, 3/4 lb. stoned raisins, 2 bottles of best vinegar, 30 large, unripe, sour apples, half a dozen slightly underripe mangoes."The sugar must be made into syrup; the garlic, onions and ginger be finely pounded in a mortar; the mustard-seed be washed in cold vinegar and dried in the sun; the apples and mangoes be peeled, cored and sliced, and boiled in a bottle and a half of the vinegar. When all this is done, and the apples are quite cold, put them into a large pan and gradually mix the whole of the rest of the ingredients, including the remaining half-bottle of vinegar. It must be well stirred until the whole is thoroughly blended, and then put into bottles for use. Tie a piece of wet bladder over the mouths of the bottles, after which they are well corked. This chutney is very superior to any which can be bought, and one trial will prove it to be delicious."