Nature on our Doorsteps: wild garlic

Nature on our Doorsteps is a weekly column written by South Dublin County Council’s heritage officer, Rosaleen Dwyer. 

THE garlic that is widely used in cooking today is a cultivated bulb that was originally brought back from the middle east by the Crusaders.

The taste of garlic would have been quite familiar to the Crusaders, as there were wild, garlic-flavoured plants back home.

The intensity of flavour in the cultivated bulb, however, was much stronger than their home-grown wild plants.

Two native, garlic-flavoured, plants are in flower now that were once widely used for cooking and medicine, long before cultivated garlic became popular.

Garlic Mustard is a wildflower of roadsides, hedgerows, and woodland margins. Its leaves are distinctively heart-shaped, with bluntly-toothed edges.

Its flowers have 4 petals, making it a member of the Brassica, or cabbage, family. Its seeds develop in long thin seedpods.

Garlic mustard grows along paths and hedgerows

When its leaves are picked and bruised, Garlic Mustard smells strongly of garlic. Its leaves and seeds were once widely used in salads, to flavour fish, and to treat sore throats.

Traces of Garlic Mustard seeds have been found in European archaeological sites dating back 5,000 years.

Another garlic-flavoured plant growing in shady woods and hedgerows is Wild Garlic, or Ramsons.

Its long glossy green leaves and lovely star-like flowers have a mild garlic flavour.

The use of this wild plant to make garlic pesto sauce has recently become popular.