The 50 Mile Diet

Hutchinson, Minnesota has an annual garlic festival in August. It sounded like a fun outing on a warm Saturday. An hour’s drive seemed a reasonable distance to buy some local garlic.

What did I know about garlic ahead of time? A bunch of cloves made of a bulb….they are tasty and pungent…my hands smell of garlic after I chop them…they add flavor to almost any dish. Okay, so I knew nothing about garlic.

The festival took place at the McLeod County fairgrounds, primarily in one of the large barns. Not only were there booths about garlic, but there were also vendors sampling local milk and cheese and booths focused on sustainable gardening.

Now about that garlic. There were many farmers selling garlic. Who knew there were so many varieties of garlic? Over 100 varieties are grown in Minnesota. They are planted in October and harvested in July — and then cured before you can buy them. One fellow was sampling tiny pieces of garlic. “Do you like it hot?” he asked me. I didn’t even know the answer. (not really, is my answer) In the past, I go to the store — or the farmstand or the farmers market — and just grab a bulb to cook with. I had no idea that someone had already decided what I would like — or what would last the longest on the shelves.

There are actually two main varieties of garlic: hardneck and softneck. What I’ve generally bought in the grocery store are softneck garlic, mostly from California, 10-40 cloves per bulb, and can be stored for over 6 months. Hardneck garlic bulbs have 4-12 cloves apiece and don’t store as well. I bought a hardneck variety called Music — not because I know what I’m doing but because one of the farmers said it’d go great in my salsa and it has some really large cloves. I also learned how to plant it and I’m wondering if the smell of the plant will ward off those voracious rabbits from eating everything in sight in my garden! I learned that scapes — those delicious curly tops of the garlic plant — are snipped off to increase the growing of the garlic underground.

The garlic festival also had garlic ice cream for a dollar. Listen, if I’m going to eat the calories of ice cream, it’s not going to have garlic in it. Really. I watched people tasting it — they had this moment of “huh?” before really diving in.

It was fun to go to a festival focused on a single food item. Now maybe someone can tell me what to do with two dozen zucchini?