Garlic mustard ✦

Alliaire officinale

What it is

Charred deposits on western Baltic pottery have yielded garlic mustard seed phytoliths dated to roughly 6,000 years ago, mixed with fish and deer fats — the earliest direct evidence in Europe of food seasoned for taste rather than for nourishment. The plant smells of garlic without being an allium at all: it is a crucifer, building that smell from sulphur compounds of its own.

In the kitchen

The garlic note is destroyed by heat, so chop it raw into a salsa verde or a soft butter. Take leaves before flowering — once it bolts they go hard and bitter — while the young seed pods stay usable as a pungent caper.

Goes with

Lamb Potato Walnut Parmesan Mackerel Olive oil

In season alongside

Cilantro / Coriander Garlic chives Lovage Mustard greens Nepitella Oregon white truffle

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