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Garlic

Kondoru

Kondoru

Beloved of Ra
Joined
Dec 5, 2003
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Anyhow this line of thought started when I bought a couple of slices of simnel cake from the community cafe for me and Dad as an Easter treat. (£2 each and a bargain).

The cake was very extravagant and over spiced and I commented to Dad that this is what anyone who had money in medieval times would have ate; strong tasting stuff.

Medieval taste was very different to ours, with an emphasis on extravagant flavours, the wealthy ate imported spices but even the poor would have enjoyed pot herbs, even things like radish leaves.

And garlic. They loved onions and garlic.

So, my thought is, if vampires and the undead dislike garlic, (a garlic snob told me, French for preference, not this Italian rubbish), if garlic is ubiquitous, then how do they stand a chance?

(Though some authorities claim the repelling plant is actually scallions, -shallots, of any pickle jar fame).
 
Apparently both garlic and onion once had a more general - and very widespread - association with warding off the evil eye, and bad luck in general.

I wonder if garlic's potential as an emetic has something to do with the tradition. Illness was - at one time - seen as a potential consequence of the evil eye. Vomiting is both a physical metaphor for ridding the body of things that should not be there - and sometimes even works. (Apparently ramsons / wild garlic were fed to livestock to rid them of worms - I have a vague remembrance of my dad telling me that his father did this. No idea if it works, but I grow ramsons in my garden, and they are very tasty.)
 
I have mentioned an incident I had in Israel where a spider the size of a small plate decided to spend the night in the bedroom I was staying in.
Luckily, I saw it going in there (I don't like to consider what would have happened had my first sight/feel of it been in the darkness or early hours while tucked up in bed).
After removing it from the premises, the Argentinian guy who's house it was, cut a huge bulb of garlic in half and we went around rubbing it on the window sills/door steps etc.

Considering that he had done his national service in the jungles of South America, I took it that he knew what he was doing.

It's easy to see then, why garlic has the reputation of being very helpful in many other situations, especially before the days of modern medicines/hospitals where a spider bite (for eg) could be fatal.
 
Floyd1 said:
I have mentioned an incident I had in Israel where a spider the size of a small plate decided to spend the night in the bedroom I was staying in.
Luckily, I saw it going in there (I don't like to consider what would have happened had my first sight/feel of it been in the darkness or early hours while tucked up in bed).
After removing it from the premises, the Argentinian guy who's house it was, cut a huge bulb of garlic in half and we went around rubbing it on the window sills/door steps etc...
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I think I'm right in saying that spiders have sensory organs on their legs - which might make walking through garlic paste an unpleasantly hypersensory experience. Be interesting to know if it's ever been scientifically tested.

There's a tradition that garlic deters rats - but I think it's more of a webfact than an actual one; most of the grown up sources suggest there's absolutely no evidence it works.
 
Garlic has always been widely regarded as good for blood disorders; I always thought that if one assumes vampirism is a blood contamination, then garlic is subconsciously seen as a purifier.
I love garlic and find pickled garlic cloves as a more-ish treat!
 
There's loads of wild garlic that grows in some woods near my house that I pick every year. We store it in our freezer so I can chop it up as and when the rest of the year. A neighbour's advised me that I can also eat the flowers which have the added advantage of not making you not smell of garlic so I'm going to try that this year.
 
Stormkhan said:
I love garlic and find pickled garlic cloves as a more-ish treat!
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Yes I like the pickled ones on occasion. Although anything but that powdered/granulated 'dried to death' rubbish is fine.

I don't eat much garlic these days, but my favourite way (when I used to use the oven a lot more than I do now) is to put a full bulb in a ramikin with oil and salt and cook for around 30 minutes (or until the cloves are very soft). I could eat two bulbs that way, easily.

It's more economical if you're also doing a roast or something else at the same time- but to fire the oven up just for two bulbs, I find a bit of a 'waste' so haven't had it for ages now.
 
I remember reading about garlic some years ago and finding some of the 'facts' fascinating at the time. I just don't remember the source. [Hmm ... garlic sauce].

One thing was the idea that garlic can act as an anticoagulant or more correctly increase the affects of some anticoagulants and as such was used to aid when 'bleeding' a patient for health related reasons. Another 'fact' suggested that the garlic versus vampires thing came about from the rationale; garlic thins blood and vampires want thick 'pure' blood therefore vampires hate garlic. Further to this garlic has for many years been used by various religions, including Christianity, for differing spiritual rituals. This train of thought would lead to garlic being seen as a repelent of evil - such as vampires.

It is said that the first vampire [possibly] was Judas Iscariot of [Christian] biblical infamy. Not only for betrayal was Judas punished but also for trying to take his own life at sunrise. The vampires aversion to silver is said to be due to Judas getting silver as payment for betrayal and vampires extreme reaction to sunlight is reportedly because of the attempted life ending at dawn. After taking the Judas stories into account along with religions using the herb [actually a vegetable] spiritually it hardly surprises that Garlic is said to repel vampires.

The Istrian [modern Croatia] štrigon or warlock / vampire legends are interesting though I have yet to find a link between them and Garlic.

Using garlic as a spider repellent is something I heard about years ago from a guy who used to be in the RAF and encountered many a large arachnid as he served all over the world. A locally known way to rid our homes of spiders is to put chestnuts out in varying places such as window sills [though this is likely an old wifes tale]. Really! Why would we want to get rid of spiders? As was oft said by older relatives "You got spiders? You got nothing else as spiders eat the rest.".
 
Ogdred Weary said:
I thought vampires were just like old school Brits and terrified of strong flavours.

Or flavour full stop.
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Ha! Ha! I'm kind of getting a bit long in the tooth and English [OK! I'll let ya have 'Brit']. The old 'brits have no taste' thing always brings a smile!

I visit Germany to see family now and then. An old friend in Nord Rhine Westfalen is part of a family that has, through the years, been in the catering trade and had butchers shops. Her father used to make the most brilliant wild boar and garlic sausage I'd ever tasted.
 
When I was growing up my mother had a very strong aversion to garlic (but no other outward signs of vampirism). I put this down to her growing up during the war, just outside London, so no opportunities for 'growing their own' and very little of anything in the shops. Maybe garlic is something you need to be exposed to whilst growing up in order to have a taste for it.

My mother always averred that it made people smell 'musty'.

I was first exposed to garlic when living in France in my late teens, where the family I lived with made a salad out of chopped fresh tomatoes, oil and chopped garlic. It was delicious and I make it myself now whenever I can.
 
catseye said:
I was first exposed to garlic when living in France in my late teens, where the family I lived with made a salad out of chopped fresh tomatoes, oil and chopped garlic. It was delicious and I make it myself now whenever I can.
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I didn't realise that that was a French thing- to add garlic to salad.
 
Garlic has powerful quantities of allicin, and also sulphur-based compounds IIRC.

It's used as a gardeners' folk-remedy for plants - spraying crop plants such as broad beans with a garlic solution to repel aphids and other nasties.

It's also (as I was moved to research after peeling about a kilo of the stuff for a batch of ginger & garlic paste) capable of inducing chemical burns to the skin. I had tingly red fingertips for a few days!

It's one of those natural substances that - because it's deemed 'natural' - is somewhat prone to being used to ill-effect for health reasons; for example from the BMJ in 2018 here: https://casereports.bmj.com/content/2018/bcr-2018-226027

"A 45-year-old woman presented with a 12 hour history of painful blisters and erythema over the dorsum of her left great toe. The patient reported applying freshly sliced raw garlic to the dorsum of her left great toe during the past 4 weeks for up to 4 hours a day to treat a fungal nail infection. On examination, the left great toe was swollen, erythematous and blistering. Her great toenail was yellow and slightly lifted from the nail bed. Clinically, she had a partial thickness burn..."

[warning - the image in the case report linked to above is not for the squeamish]
 
Stormkhan said:
I love garlic and find pickled garlic cloves as a more-ish treat!
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I have never had pickled garlic, but a couple of years ago a coworker brought garlic stuffed olives (the green ones) to a potlatch. Mmmmmm heaven. I love olives and garlic. I never knew both existed together.

catseye said:
My mother always averred that it made people smell 'musty'.

I was first exposed to garlic when living in France in my late teens, where the family I lived with made a salad out of chopped fresh tomatoes, oil and chopped garlic. It was delicious and I make it myself now whenever I can.
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I love the smell of garlic and have had people apologize for having had garlic. I'm ok with it.

I don't think I could eat raw chopped garlic. I have had a small bit of a clove and that's ok. But raw onions, and I would think raw garlic, in anything bothers my stomach. But I will eat anything flavoured with garlic.

Never thought about vampires' aversion to garlic. I think the garlic thing might have come about with the movies. Long time since I read Dracula, but I don't remember anything about garlic.

The idea of garlic thinning blood and vampirism sounds like a good explanation to why vampires would be averse to it. How would you survive on thinned blood?
 
I love garlic in any form, cooked, pickled or raw.
The one factor that gets overlooked in most scientific reports is the concentration of garlic oil. There is a huge difference in allicin levels between cooked, raw and concentrated oil.
Referring to the impact on canine diet, an American report declared garlic as 'poisonous' to dogs. When you actually read the report, the tests used concentrated garlic oil at levels which would also affect humans! The thing is, dogs shouldn't eat onions - they're not poisonous at ordinary (domestic) levels but it certainly upsets their digestion a lot. Garlic is related to onions, therefore (to most folks) garlic is harmful too.
In tiny amounts - not even enough to smell on their breath - it's actually a flea-repellent, as the allicin in their blood is ... distasteful to flees and ticks. Not saying that you should positively dose them, but don't worry about it if your dog eats a bit of dropped garlic.
 
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Stormkhan said:
I love garlic in any form, cooked, pickled or raw.
The one factor that gets overlooked in most scientific reports is the concentration of garlic oil. There is a huge difference in allicin levels between cooked, raw and concentrated oil.
Referring to the impact on canine diet, an American report declared garlic as 'poisonous' to dogs. When you actually read the report, the tests used concentrated garlic oil at levels which would also affect humans! The thing is, dogs shouldn't eat onions - they're not poisonous at ordinary (domestic) levels but it certainly upsets their digestion a lot. Garlic is related to onions, therefore (to most folks) garlic is harmful too.
In tiny amounts - not even enough to smell on their breath - it's actually a flea-repellent, as the allicin in their blood is ... distasteful to flees and ticks. Not saying that you should positively dose them, but don't worry about it if your dog eats a bit of dropped garlic.
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Every now and then I give the dog a small piece of garlic with her other food. She wouldn't touch onion though.
 
That's good. Garlic is such an intense flavour that you only need a fraction of what we'd smell and taste, their sense of taste and smell is so superior to ours.
 
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