Written by Tao Su (Chengdu University of Technology).
Garlic is native to Central Asia and is found in the food culture of almost all countries around the world. During the Western Han Dynasty in the 1st century BC, Zhang Qian sent an envoy to the Western Regions to bring back garlic, and since then, this herb has entered thousands of households in China and has become an indispensable part of the people's dining table. When we visit the vegetable market, in addition to the common multi-clove garlic, there is also a kind of purple-skinned one-headed garlic, how did it come about? And is multi-clove garlic a species? What's the difference?
Garlic: It's full of treasures
Garlic, a year-old or biennial herbaceous plant of the lily family Allium (including leeks, green onions, shallots, onions and many other cultivated plant species), sown in autumn and harvested in early summer, is widely planted in areas other than the tropics around the world (garlic is more cold-loving, and the temperature in tropical areas is too high to be suitable for its growth), and can be stored in a low-temperature and dry environment for a long time, so we can eat it all year round.
When we say garlic, we often refer to garlic, which is the underground bulb of garlic (a flat or disc-shaped underground stem surrounded by many thick, fleshy scales, such as an onion), usually with multiple garlic cloves, each of which is the vegetative reproductive organ of garlic, and the membranous skin wrapped around the garlic clove is called garlic coating. The pungent smell of garlic mainly comes from allicin, which has two substances in its cells, alliin and alliinase, which are separated by cell membranes and do not disturb each other in their natural state. But after cutting or mashing it, the cell membrane of garlic is destroyed, and the two substances react quickly to produce spicy allicin, which will make us love and hate it when we eat it.
"Lonely guest" in garlic
In recent years, a kind of round, non-cloved garlic has entered the vegetable market and supermarket, compared with ordinary multi-clove garlic, it has more "garlic flavor", high nutritional value, and easy to peel. What is surprising is that it is not actually another species of garlic, but "of the same origin" as multi-clove garlic. If you want to understand it, you have to start with the growth process of garlic.
At the base of the garlic head is the bulb disc (also known as the root plate), which grows fibrous roots on one side and very small axillary buds on the other side, which grow and swell into bulbs, which are the garlic cloves we eat. There are usually many axillary buds on the bulb disc that will grow into multiple cloves of garlic at the same time, but if the cultivation conditions of garlic are controlled to allow only the apical buds of axillary buds** (the buds that form at the top of the stem, usually the first to form) to expand, they will grow into a single garlic.
The cultivation conditions that are most closely related to the formation of one-headed garlic are time. The growth of garlic generally has to undergo vernalization (using low temperature to induce overwintering plants to flower, from the vegetative growth stage to the reproductive stage), if planted late, garlic does not have enough time to undergo vernalization, can not develop axillary buds well, and cannot form inflorescences, garlic has to concentrate all nutrients in the terminal bud, and finally expands into a one-headed garlic.
As the agricultural proverb goes, "Garlic is not out of nine, and nine are long." For the same garlic cloves, the later the planting time, the easier it is to form a single garlic (not too late, mid-to-late December to mid-to-early January of the following year is more appropriate, too late planting will make the plant unable to grow and eventually die). In addition to the planting time, too small seed petals, too large planting density, too high winter temperature, too little water, etc. will also form one-headed garlicIt can be said that the one-headed garlic is the first developed individual that grows out of garlic due to damage in a poor growth environment.
Growing garlic is not as difficult as we think, peel a few garlic cloves and plant your own garlic this winter! Garlic is rich in a variety of nutrients, and eating garlic in moderation will help your health!
Knowledge links
Silly indistinguishable garlic sprouts, garlic yellow and garlic sprouts (tái).
The edible part of garlic is not only the bulb underground, but also the stems and leaves above it have entered our table early. Garlic sprouts refer to the "juvenile stage" of the whole garlic plant, including the stems and leaves above and the bulbs below. Garlic is a kind of garlic seedlings, which is formed by cultivating garlic in a dark environment, because there is no sunlight, so garlic seedlings cannot synthesize chlorophyll when growing, and it becomes yellow garlic. Garlic sprouts are garlic "adult" after the flower stem, due to long-term artificial cultivation, breeding, garlic sprouts will basically not bloom, fruit, will only grow a small bulb, is we often see the "small bulge".
Knowledge is Power" magazine, the original title is "From "Group Living" to "Living Alone", the author Su Tao, there are deletions, original works**Please indicate**.
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