How does garlic go from Jekyll to Hyde? Find out, via Swetha Sivakumar

Across different cultures, though, humans have grown to love the alliums. Why? Historians speculate that they were first embraced after it was found that they could help preserve foods. Because garlic juice kills certain bacterial cultures, it helps keep foods like meat and butter fresh for longer.

Studies are now testing its antimicrobial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects on the human body. Randomised control trials have shown that it can improve serum lipid profiles among people with high cholesterol, and reduce blood pressure temporarily.

Babies can pick up the flavour of garlic in breast milk, and remain attached to the breast longer when mothers swallow garlic pills (versus a placebo), found a study published in the journal Pediatrics in 1991. I don’t know if my mother already knew this, but when my daughter was born she made me a special garlic-milk stew called poondu paal kootu, traditionally served to lactating mothers. Her mother had made it for her when I was born, as mothers have done in southern India going back generations. The stew is believed to boost immunity and strength.

Poondu paal kootu is also quite delicious. You see, all the drama of the sulphur fragrance is only released when one cuts into garlic. A whole bulb or whole clove smells pretty bland. Fry or boil these without disrupting the cells and you will find that the taste of the whole is rather timid, even sweet.

As with the mustard seed pod, the garlic clove stores its chemicals in separate compartments, in a trait it has evolved as a means of survival. If an animal dares to chew it, the cell walls burst and the enzyme alliinase from one compartment comes in contact with the sulphur-containing molecule alliin in another, to create the compound allicin. Allicin is what gives garlic its pungent taste and smell. And this is why, the more finely one chops garlic, the more flavour and aroma it releases into the dish.

In the body, allicin is metabolised as several sulphur-containing compounds, of which allyl methyl sulfide takes the longest to break down (24 hours or more). This is why a person who has eaten a lot of garlic may find a smell lingering in their breath, sweat and urine. This is also why certain communities in India prohibit the use of garlic on religious days. And it’s why Ancient Greeks had rules about people eating garlic and walking into their temples.

In 19th-century Victorian-era England, the odour was one of the reasons garlic was looked down upon as an ingredient of the poor and working-class. In 16th-century Elizabethan England, even Shakespeare threw it some shade. “And, most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic for we are to utter sweet breath,” he writes, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Yet, for all the snootiness, garlic features in medicinal recipes in traditions from around the world, including India’s Ayurveda, ancient Chinese medicine, Korean traditions and Western folk fixes. Garlic also earned the nickname “Russian penicillin” after doctors in that country used it to treat respiratory-tract diseases in children in the early 1900s.

Which is not to say that everyone should start popping pods at will. Garlic can cause discomfort, bloating, stomach cramps, gastric reflux and heartburn in some, when eaten raw. Among others, it can cause those side effects when eaten cooked too. This is because some people do not produce enough enzymes to completely digest the complex carbohydrates in garlic.

If you are among these unlucky few, listen to your body and avoid it. For the rest, celebrate this delicious medicinal plant. In my book, as the chefs say, there’s no such thing as too much of it.