Wikipedia – Black garlic is a type of fermented garlic used as a food ingredient in Asian cuisine. It is made by fermenting whole bulbs of garlic at high temperature, a process that results in black cloves. The taste is sweet and syrupy with hints of balsamic or even tamarind.  Black garlic’s popularity has spread to the United States as it has become a sought-after ingredient used in high-end cuisine. It is unrelated to a genetically unique six-clove garlic also called black garlic and used in countries such as Korea.

Black garlic has a long history in the cuisine of Korea, Thailand, and Japan. It is prized as a food rich in antioxidants and added to energy drinks and in Thailand is claimed to increase the consumer’s longevity. One interesting use is in the making of black garlic chocolate for Valentine’s Day.

In the United States black garlic entered the mainstream in 2008 when Le Sanctuaire in San Francisco began selling its own black garlic. It was written up in the Spring 2008 “Design and Living” special section of the New York Times as a “new staple” of modern cuisine (and incorporated into a recipe, “Black Garlic Roast Chicken”); the NYT author, Merrill Stubbs, noted it was being used by chef Bruce Hill of Bix Restaurant, San Francisco. Hill soon found his way to the entrepreneur Scott Kim, who in 2005 had started to import garlic from Jeju Island, Korea, to process in the United States. He ferments them for a month, at high temperature, and sells them online. Black garlic’s fame grew from there. Soon, Matthias Merges, executive chef at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, listed black garlic as one of his top five food finds in Restaurant News, December 2008. The rise of black garlic in the US was called “sensational,” and other trade publications besides Restaurant News have noticed the trend.

More information, health benefits, recipes and where to get it at Black Garlic.

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