I’m sitting overlooking a valley. From my vantage point the progression of clouds can be easily observed; cotton wool whiteness meandering aimlessly across blue sky or heavy, dark and stormy and travelling north towards me. In a matter of minutes the sun will be obscured and a downpour that seems exceedingly ferocious to an outsider will be unleashed. Then, gradually, the rain eases, and the echoey dripping on the tin roof is quickly replaced with settling crinkling and crackling as the sun comes out again. Just in time for another cloudburst.
The drought is over in NSW. From the confines of the cities, where changes in the weather mostly just influence our clothes and weekend activities, this news was received happily and with thoughts of the farmers. But crops don’t suddenly succeed just because it rained. The timing and severity of the rainfall is crucial, as is the amount of sunlight available and how hot that sunlight is. For instance, this years low-chill stonefruit crop will be bland and boring due to lack of sunlight earlier in the year. The rain may be supporting a bumper mango season in far north Queensland, but it has had the opposite affect on northern rivers fruit of which there won’t be any this season. Local north coast garlic has also been affected.
Garlic is an essential ingredient in my kitchen and I put it in just about everything. I love how it changes its flavour and aspect when handled differently, from harsh raw shards to mellow roasted sweetness. We’ve all had heads of garlic or lonely abandoned cloves start to sprout in our kitchens, but turning that growth into a brand new bulb isn’t so easy.
On the north coast of NSW, dry garlic cloves are planted from February to April. There needs to be enough water around for the clove to sprout and grow, but if it’s too wet for too long the clove will just rot in the ground. In spring the plants send up edible flowers, best picked before they bloom. Cook them lightly in a little olive oil to soften the stems and eat whole, the flavour is all mildly garlic punctuated with flower-eating whimsy. From October to December is harvest time, when clear and sunny weather is essential to ensure the bulbs will dry out, to look like that garlic we all buy from the shop.
This year has been wet with little sunlight and in some crops each individual garlic clove has just continued growing, skipping the drying out and harvest processes and starting the next cycle all on it’s own. We were given some of these garlicky anomalies to try (first two pictures). With no papery skin to speak of these garlic shoots are easy to prepare, cut off the base and wash thoroughly. I sliced it finely and, sautéed in olive oil and butter with mushrooms, it seemed to add both the onion and garlic component in one. The white section is tempered garlic which gets even milder as it progresses through yellow to green. The upper coloured arms of this mutant looking vegetable are reminiscent of the tops of baby spring onions, though devoid of any sharpness. An unusual and tasty mistake.
You won’t find any such delicious manifestations of unusual weather on the shelves in Coles or Harris Farm Markets, but they may be available at a local farmers market, or even in your own backyard.
