Garlic Knots (1988)

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:51 PM -0400 9/7/03, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>
>(FACTIVA)
>FEATURES TRAVEL
>An aromatic welcome to world garlic capital

You mean to tell me Gilroy, CA isn't the unique World's Garlic
Capital?  They always claim it is.  And they have their own garlic
queen--have had since the early 60's at the latest.  Maybe their and
Arleux's should have a championship playoff or clove-in--the event
described below carries more than a whiff of the similar proceedings
that have been taking place annually in Gilroy for ages.  Wonder
which one was first to call itself "Garlic Capital" (in either
English or French)...

L

>Nino Lo Bello
>665 words
>18 November 1978
>The Globe and Mail
>P47; (ILLUST)
>English
>All material copyright Thomson Canada Limited or its licensors. All
>rights reserved.
>
>To get to the Garlic Capital of the world, you don't need a road
>map. Just follow your nose . .
>
>Here in this tiny village of 3,000 garlic growers, some four hours
>north of Paris near the Belgian border, garlic is passionately
>revered for its character and taste. Let it be said that if you have
>an anti-garlic prejudice, do your tourism in this garlicky hub and
>learn why Arleux scorns the scorners of the Lilicea, genus Allium
>sativum.
>
>Yes, you better believe it - garlic is a member of the lily family,
>along with onions, scallions, chives and leeks. The wondrous,
>eccentric white bulb, which has as many friends as it has enemies,
>is Item A in Arleux the whole year round, but during the middle of
>December this village stages a festival in honor of the smelly
>epicurean herb, climaxed by the election of Miss Garlic.
>
>The reigning Garlic Queen is 18-year-old Nadine Leroux, who works as
>a riverboat hostess. Besides all the honor, the curvy blonde is
>given her weight in garlic (126 lbs.) as a prize - which, she says,
>she intends to eat. Standing a safe, non-asphyxiating three feet
>away, she tells members of the press that she is wild about garlic,
>eats it twice a day and carries the raw cloves in her purse at all
>times. No, she doesn't have a fiance, but she's not worried because
>everybody in Arleux eats garlic and when two people have eaten
>garlic, they're unaware of each other's breath.
>
>During the annual garlic festival, stalls are set up on Arleux's
>winding main street, all of which dispense garlicky products and
>garlicky hot dishes of every kind. One stand gives out free bowls of
>garlic soup to any tourist who isn't French. Other stalls go in for
>such take-home specialties as garlic cheeses and sausages, dried and
>smoked garlic, garlands of braided garlic bulbs (some of which are
>three feet long) and hot slices of garlic bread.
>
>The festival is climaxed in the evening with a garlic ball in the
>town hall, sumptuously decorated with stringed garlic knots (what
>else?).
>(...)
>