How Many Bulbs Does It Take To Change A Vampyre?

I’ve been buying eggs and organic vegetables at the Ballard Farmers’ Market from Marie Oliver and her mother Arlene Long for over six years. They grow some amazing things at Anselmo’s Organic Farms in Snohomish, WA, and their pickles, carrots, tomatoes, and greens among other things have had me queuing up 30 to 40 minutes before the market opens every Sunday. They are especially known though for their organic garlic, as many fifty seven varieties in a good year.

After working my way through the all-too-short green garlic season, and a month or so fresh garlic, with its difficult to peel, but relatively mild cloves, I was delighted to see Marie creating a tall pile of their first dried organic garlic of the season this past Sunday - the stems aren’t cut off until the garlic has completed drying. The Chinese Purple, with its vivid purple striping on a bright white background, is usually the first to ripen every year, and that’s the variety they started drying two weeks ago. The outer skin and clove covers are dried - with the flavor continuing to develop - to permit the typical elongated storage time for most garlic bulbs. (Click the image to enlarge it.)

The Chinese Purple is a "softneck" garlic variety that behaves like a "hardneck" when grown here in the Pacific Northwest, but without having a true “hard” central stem. It has six to eight very large cloves that are quite easy to peel, two characteristics of "hardneck" garlic. Chinese Purple garlic is a short storing garlic as most don't last more than 4 to 5 months at room temperature before sprouting. Marie told me she had just eaten some a few nights before and its signature heat was just developing after two weeks. I bought a bunch of three and planned to use at least one head for my roast chicken on Monday.

Although the outer and inner skins of the garlic were still pliable for the most part, the purple covers of on the large cloves were easy to peel. For my palate quite a lot of heat has already been developed in the raw cloves with telltale mustiness on the finish. I actually used two entire heads for my roasted chicken this evening, and the roasted cloves were mildly sweet with a pleasant, aromatic and spicy finish. I am now thinking about pickling a number of my favorite varieties this year to find out what a little vinegar does to their flavors. Anselmo’s now has a website, and you can buy all of their organic garlic varieties right from the farm with no middleman adding overhead and profit to increase the price. All in all, a great start to the garlic season with fifty six varieties to go…