Garlic: A Love Story - Zane Kathryne Schwaiger
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in SEASON Garlic: A Love Story STORY AND PHOTOS BY ZANE KATHRYNE SCHWAIGER 12 EDIBLE GRANDE TRAVERSE | SUMMER 2019 EdibleGrandeTraverse.com
My love affair with garlic begins I left the farm just before Thanksgiving, knowing intimately only
one season of the garlic life cycle. And yet, it was enough. Enough
in a barn. for garlic to lay a claim to me.
I am a 19-year-old college student, working afternoons as an intern Years later my husband and I received garlic as a wedding gift. Two
on a small organic farm in southern Illinois. Half-bushel baskets of days after our wedding, we said goodbye to Northern Michigan
dirt-encrusted bulbs line the barn walls near the open doors. and drove to an apartment in Pittsburgh with a brown paper bag
Farmer Walt pulls a stool out of a corner into the light and drags full of “Meadowlark Red” grown in Leelanau County and given to
over a basket of garlic. I follow suit, and we sit together—me us by dear farmer friends. That fall we cracked open the bulbs and
asking dozens of questions, him patiently answering as he demon- planted two dozen cloves in our community garden, a 20- by 20-
strates how to “crack” the garlic: splitting open papery heads with foot section on the edge of a city park. The garlic came up in the
his weathered hands, gently separating the cloves. This is hardneck spring and nourished us and our new friends all summer. We
garlic, with four to six cloves in each bulb, consistently sized except served garlic in our salad dressings, garlic on our pizzas, garlic in
for the occasional shriveled bit, which we will feed to the pigs. pesto sauce. Garlic fed us and our growing baby. In eating Lee-
lanau-born garlic, we were never far from home. A few weeks after
It was just the first day of many spent with garlic on “R” Farm; we
our first little girl was born that fall, we planted cloves again.
worked on and off, between other chores, until we had 10,000
cloves ready for October planting. Cracking the garlic could have When Northern Michigan called us home, we carried a bag of our
been monotonous, but it wasn’t. It was deeply grounding to sit in garlic to Traverse City. There in a little downtown garden plot, we
the shelter of the barn, massaging smooth bulbs in my fingers, sur- put down roots. In that city yard, our two daughters learned to love
rounded by the pungent aroma—like pesto, like my mother’s garlic scapes, the curly tips that emerge in June and need to be
kitchen before dinner. snapped off so the plants will send all their energy down into the
Sometimes I worked with Walt, but often I worked alone. I fell
into a rhythm with garlic and found a peace I didn’t know I was
missing.
When I sit on the warm
I loved my academic classes: French, philosophy, natural history.
Studying at a liberal arts college on the bluffs overlooking the Mis-
autumn ground with a
sissippi River was a dream come true; my full-time job was to
spend hours deeply engaged in books. But cracking garlic was
basket of bulbs ready to be
unexpectedly satisfying. Why did I feel so at home here in the barn,
miles away from my beloved library study carrel and hundreds of cracked ... I am held by the
miles from my family and the woods in Michigan?
Cracking the garlic was necessary in an immediate way so different
incredibly grounding force of
from my studies. And, in fact, everything I did in college took on
new meaning that fall as I participated in the growing of food, in
garlic and the affection I
the essential act of feeding people. Sitting alone in a pair of old
jeans, far from everything familiar to me, covered in dirt and bits of first tasted those years ago
garlic skins, I began to discover a great affection for farming.
I worked on Walt’s farm for only one college quarter. Before I fin-
in the barn.
ished my internship, we put all the garlic in the ground as Walt
told me stories of what was to come: the nine months needed for
bulbs. Our girls ran around the garden, pretending the scapes were
garlic to grow; the sweaty July harvest when all the bulbs must
snakes and wearing them as bracelets while I cooked them into stir-
come out of the ground in a single day; the way the barn would
fry and added them to sushi rolls.
reek while heads cured during the heat of summer; the money he
hoped people would pay in upscale St. Louis markets for this Up until this point, we’d only grown a couple dozen heads a year.
stinking rose; the balance between selling and saving enough to There wasn’t enough room in our Pittsburgh community garden or
plant again in the fall. enough sun in our Traverse City lot to grow more. So we savored
our garlic, disciplining ourselves not to eat it all but to save enough
for replanting. After a long search, we found land in Leelanau
County with space to grow a bigger garden, raise chickens and
EdibleGrandeTraverse.com EDIBLE GRANDE TRAVERSE | SUMMER 2019 13
plant more garlic. We must have asked our Meadowlark farmers for
extra bulbs that fall, because according to my garden notebook, we
planted 76 cloves the first October at our new home. It felt like we
were almost a farm. Walt would have been proud.
Every year since, we’ve planted more garlic. And the more garlic we
grow, the more we use and share, and the more creative we have
become with this culinary delight. We put whole cloves into our
fermented pickle jars. We make massive quantities of pesto to eat
fresh and to freeze for the winter. We mix up a fermented garlic
paste that tastes delicious with almost every meal. We put garlic in
bone broth and in fresh salsa.
Perhaps the most satisfying of all is simply going down into our
basement in the middle of January and choosing a head of garlic to
bring upstairs to the kitchen. To unwrap the gift of summer
growth, ripe and rich when the snow flies, is to suddenly come
under the spell of garlic. To cook dinner for family and friends with
our own garlic during the darkest season of the year: This brings us
unmistakable light.
Garlic harvest at our house has become one of the most anticipated
days of summer. Our three children love to pull up the mysterious
bulbs that have been swelling under the earth for nine months
almost as much as I do. As we pull out the garlic, always, there are
questions. Why do we have to plant garlic in the fall? How does
each clove turn into an entire head? And those snake-like garlic
scape bracelets: What would happen if we let them uncurl, flower
and make seeds?
Even though there is familiarity in the rhythm of garlic, the miracle
of growing has only deepened year after year, especially at planting
time. When I sit on the warm autumn ground with a basket of bulbs
ready to be cracked, my children shouting and playing (and some-
times helping) nearby, I am held by the incredibly grounding force of
garlic and the affection I first tasted those years ago in the barn.
Planting garlic in October is like a promise: Our long northern
winter will pass, spring will arrive and garlic will emerge from the
earth. Storms come and go. Garlic is there. Other garden plants are
damaged by pests or drought and garlic grows on, undisturbed.
Relationships become strained, loved ones get ill, politics are
unpredictable. Garlic is there. And we will save the bulbs, and we
will plant the cloves, and garlic will come up and garlic will nourish
our family again and again. eGT
Zane Kathryne Schwaiger is a writer, editor and photographer living
in Suttons Bay with her husband and three children. She can be
reached through her website ZaneKathryne.com or on Instagram
@zanekathryne.
14 EDIBLE GRANDE TRAVERSE | SUMMER 2019 EdibleGrandeTraverse.com
PICKLED GARLIC PASTE
6–8 heads garlic
2 teaspoons unrefined sea salt
Peel garlic and process to a thick paste consistency in a food
processor or with a mortar and pestle. Mix in salt. Press the
paste into a quart jar and then insert a zip-top bag into the jar,
open at the top. Smooth the plastic down onto the surface of
the paste and fill the bag with water to create an airtight seal.
Set the jar on a plate, in a cool place, out of direct sunlight, for
14 to 21 days. Check daily to make sure the paste is sub-
merged. Start to test the fermented paste after 14 days; when
you love the flavor, remove the water and plastic, put on a lid
and store in the refrigerator. This delicious paste can be used in
all recipes calling for garlic and it will keep for up to a year.
Occasionally the paste will take on a green or blue hue during
fermentation. This is harmless and the paste will usually return
to a golden color as fermentation progresses.
Adapted from Fermented Vegetables by Kristen K. Shockey &
Christopher Shockey (Storey Publishing, 2014).
GARLIC AND BASIL PESTO
2 big bunches basil
4 large cloves garlic
½ cup walnuts, pine nuts or pumpkin seeds
½ cup olive oil
¼ cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon unrefined sea salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
Wash and dry basil; pinch off all the leaves. Peel and mince
garlic. Put all ingredients into a food processor and blend. The
lemon juice helps to keep the pesto from turning brown after
blending. The cheese can be eliminated for a delicious vegan
pesto. Eat fresh to your heart’s content or freeze in little blobs
on a baking sheet. After the pesto blobs are frozen, transfer
them into a jar or freezer bag. Warm up frozen pesto in a pan
on the stove with olive oil and, if you wish, a little freshly
minced garlic. This garlicky pesto tastes especially wonderful
warmed up for dinner in the middle of February.
EdibleGrandeTraverse.com EDIBLE GRANDE TRAVERSE | SUMMER 2019 15
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