[Image description: a perfectly round peeled bulb of garlic on a cutting board, with unpeeled normal cloves behind it.]
When the recipe calls for one clove of garlic.
this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2024
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That's not done yet. Garlic looks like this when it hasn't 'split' into the clove parts yet. This will be bland and only have a mild flavor.
That makes sense, he was really undersized compared to the rest.
He? uwu
Why are you getting your uwu all over the garlic?
Why are you not getting your uwu all over the garlic?
So some of the inner flesh toward the middle transforms into outer skin?
So you've got two modes of reproduction with Allium. Allium like this typically follows a biennial habit, so this years garlic will split into cloves around the fall, in preparation for sending up a flowering stalk next spring/ summer. The cloves are vegetative propagules; just another way to get more garlic other than seeds. Hence you can just plant a clove and get a garlic next year, or, you can plant seed and also get garlic.
Now for your actually question, I believe the segmentation is probably exogenous, technically yes, however, I am by no means an expert in Allium morphology (although I have done graduate coarse work in plant morph, and worked in a plant morph lab), so don't quote me. However, it wouldn't appear like you are describing. Think of the ring at the base of a clove of garlic as a bunch of 'stems'. The branching would originate there.
How do I subscribe for more garlic facts?
Me too please
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bih that's a onion
Here is another mildy interesting fact, in Swedish we group onions and garlic together by using the word "lök" with a color and different spacing to differentiate them:
"lök" - onion
"gul lök" - onion or yellow onion
"rödlök" - red onion
"vitlök" - garlic
We never talk about "vit lök", it doesn't really exist as a concept in Swedish, but we have more types of "lök"...
"gräslök" directly translates to "grass onion", but the proper translation is "chives"
"prujolök" is the Swedish name for "leek"
Garlic, onions, chives, and leeks (plus shallots, spring onions / scallions, and ramsons) are actually very closely related, being part of the same allium genus. ~~That's the same level of closeness as dogs to wolves, for example~~ my example is bad, see AlotOfReading below
Dogs and wolves are the same species (Canis Lupus), not just members of the same genus. Genus Allium is much bigger than genus Canis (over 800 species) and its members are much less closely related to each other. The common food species are at least evolutionary cousins though, unlike other parts of the category. The onions and chives all share subgenus Cepa, while garlic and leeks are off in subgenus Allium.
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i love swedish. i drive an old volvo every day and frequently end up on weird SE-language forums as a result.
What about shallots?
That would be "schalottenlök"
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On taking a closer look, I agree that this, indeed, is probably an onion.
The fabled ultra clove! It's real!
THE ONE PIE-
There's a particular variety of Chinese garlic that grows as a singular bulb. It originates in the Yunnan province, I think. I remember my mother growing it back when I was a child. It's really nice!
All garlic looks like this if its been harvested too early.
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Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but a garlic plant grows some form of a "seed" head, that will have miniature round bulbs in it if they aren't clipped off that, it's my understanding, when they are planted they'll grow like this in the first year and into a normal garlic bulb year two. I've never experimented enough to know if I'm correct, but if my info is correct I'd guess either one of those got mixed in by mistake, or if your planting in the same spot as the year prior one might've just fallen off.
bulbils
not always, but yes
this is a mutation though, and I've seen this kind of "single clove" garlic in the shops
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ate the onion
there's also a breed of garlic which always grows like that, you may have a "mutant" there
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Like a garlic bath bomb
Reinventing the onion let's go
That would have been great when my ex made lasagna and he didn't know the difference between a clove and a bulb.
looks like an onion to me.
That looks like Elephant garlic!
It might be! That was one of the varieties I planted this year, though the cloves I put in the ground looked like normal shaped cloves, just scaled up a bit.
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Wow. My best so far was a bulb with three cloves.
Chove
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