Cultural History of Garlic?

[BakerAunt]

Today, I stumbled across this quotation from Waverly Root's book, Food (1981), an essay collection and encyclopedia of food and food history: "Before I left America for France in 1927, you were looked down upon if you ate garlic, and when I returned in 1940, you were looked down upon if you didn't."

I find it fascinating, since English Renaissance drama has insults about garlic eaters, who are always the lower classes and the poor.

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[Mike Nolan]

Food references as a form of cultural insult have a long history. Think about the Irish and potatoes.

In much French cooking, something is referred to as 'English' when it is considered crude or inelegant.

[BakerAunt]

What I find interesting is that the lower classes seem to have used a lot of garlic, while the upper class did not. Certainly they must have had access to fresh herbs, so why the association with garlic? Maybe it was easier to get garlic than other herbs in the city? I'm going to have to do some poking around on this one.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

Strong spices and heavy sauces were often used to cover up spoiled or inferior quality foods.

Also, I think the garlic available years ago was more pungent than many current varieties.

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