If you read my earlier blog you will know that I had a great idea for a radio show lasting 30 minutes or a book which at that time I thought might run up to 90 odd pages.
Well here is that blog again, but this time I have started to add some information that I have so far found on Garlic. I don’t know yet if there is enough information to create a book, at this stage I do know that much more research is needed.
So enjoy what’s here, and if I can I may add to it.
Had a great Idea for either a radio show or even one of my little books that I write now and then. Well my last small books are popular when you look at the number of downloads they get. One strange thing is that the later versions of the books don’t get downloaded as much as the earlier one’s. Why this should be so I just don’t know.
The later versions of the books have far more information in them; they even have the spelling corrected…
These other books that I am talking about are on various subjects but by far the most popular are the book on Citrus fruits.
The main reason for a book on Citrus fruits?
Easy answer, as in the books I do go into far grater detail, is that I wondered just how many types of Citrus fruits there where.
So this great idea I have that could be made into either a radio programme of say 30 minutes or a small book running to say 80-100 pages is on and item that almost the whole world has or does use. It’s an item that has been around for more than 4000 years.
Oh and you eat it…
Any ideas?
No?
Well how about a radio show or programme on Garlic?
I know I know..
Me I think it’s a great idea.
Why?
Well there are lots of different Garlic plants of various types that all have different uses and grow in different places.
There is the history of Garlic.
There is all the different uses that garlic gets used in.
Finally there are the medical uses that it gets put to, which from the very small amount of research I have done is a lot.
If I was going to write a small book then I think the book could have a layout a bit like this.
Book Layout for a book called Garlic Version 0.1
Garlic Intorduction
Garlic or Allium sativum to give it its proper name is a perennial plant in the family Alliaceae and genus Allium, closely related to the onion, shallot, and leek. It does not grow in the wild ( not sure if this is right I am sure that I saw a programme on the television, where the guy presenting it had wild Garlic, I will have to check this), and is thought to have arisen in cultivation, probably descended from the species Allium longicuspis, which grows wild in south-western Asia. Garlic has been used throughout all of recorded history for both culinary and medicinal purposes (Here I want to say that recorded history means 4000 years or more)
The portion of the plant most often consumed is an underground storage structure called a head. A head of garlic is composed of a dozen or more discrete cloves, each of which is a botanical bulb, an underground structure comprised of thickened leaf bases. Each garlic clove is made up of just one leaf base, unlike onions, which are composed of numerous leaf layers. The above-ground portions of the garlic plant are also sometimes consumed, particularly while immature and tender.( Good in a salad so I am told)
Garlic has a powerful pungent or "hot" flavor when raw, which mellows considerably when it is cooked. Raw or cooked, garlic is noted for its strong characteristic odor, and for giving those who eat it a distinctive breath odor as well. Some cultures accept the odor of garlic more than others. Northern European cuisines, for example, use garlic only modestly and tend to cook it for long periods of time to diminish its strength.
Introduction 2 pages
Chapter 1
History of Garlic 20 pages
From the earliest times garlic has been used as an article of diet (Yes that means more than 4000 years ago). It formed part of the food of the Israelites in Egypt and of the laborers employed by Khufu in the construction of his pyramid. Garlic is still grown in Egypt, where, however, the Syrian is the kind most esteemed.
It was largely consumed by the ancient Greek and Roman soldiers, sailors and rural classes, and, as Pliny tells us, by the African peasantry. Galen eulogizes it as the "rustic's theriac" (cure-all), and Alexander Neckam, a writer of the 12th century, recommends it as a palliative of the heat of the sun in field labor
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Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, gives an exceedingly long list of scenarios in which it was considered beneficial. Dr. T. Sydenham valued it as an application in confluent smallpox, and, says Cullen, found some dropsies cured by it alone. Early in the 20th century, it was sometimes used in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis or phthisis.
Garlic was rare in traditional English cuisine (though it is stated to have been grown in England before 1548), and a much more common ingredient in western and southern Europe, notably in French cuisine. Garlic was placed by the ancient Greeks on the piles of stones at cross-roads, as a supper for Hecate (Theophrastus, Characters, The Superstitious Man); and according to Pliny, garlic and onions were invoked as deities by the Egyptians at the taking of oaths. The inhabitants of Pelusium in lower Egypt, who worshipped the onion, are said to have held both it and garlic in aversion as food.
To prevent the plant from running to leaf, Pliny advised bending the stalk downward and covering with earth; seeding, he observes, may be prevented by twisting the stalk (by "seeding", he mostly likely means the development of small, less potent bulbs).
Chapter 2
Garlic Through The ages 10 pages
Chapter 3
Garlic the plant 5 pages
Chapter 4
Garlic the Varieties say 10 pages
Chapter 5
Garlic and its uses 5 pages
Chapter 6
Medical effects of Garlic 5 pages
Chapter 7
10 Great uses of Garlic 10 pages
Chapter 8
Garlic Recipes 10 pages
Chapter 9
Notes 5 pages
Total Number of pages 82
Ass you can see the book could with a bit of effort be at least 82 pages long and if you added some copyright free pictures maybe the book would run to 95 pages. I reckon that someone else must have written a book on Garlic as it is such a popular cooking ingredient that selling such a book to a publisher would not be a problem.
You might think that saying all this stuff here would mean that I have no chance of making any money from doing such a book. But the truth be told I write because its fun and all my books have be made available under the share and share alike licence.
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