KEVIN SPEIDELL/The Globe and Mail
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This summer's garlic harvest was bittersweet, for several reasons. I picked a poor spot to plant it last November, too dry because of a nearby maple tree. That error yielded a series of undersized bulbs in August. And this year, for the first time, I can't compare harvests with the man who passed on his love of allium sativum to me.
Dad died last September, weeks after digging up his final haul of large, fragrant bulbs. There were 500 of them, give or take: enough for a small village. More than ample to supply many family members, friends and neighbours, plus his daily intake.
It was an extravagant supply, in keeping with the massive harvests of potatoes, carrots – and, in his final years, kale – he planted in a small-town garden larger than many city lots. Had he been so inclined, Dad could have run a stand at the local farmers' market with his surplus produce.
As gifts for people who came to his funeral, my brother, Al, sister-in-law Gloria and other members of their family prepared 300 bulbs, each prettied up with a length of ribbon and tagged with a small card. On one side was Dad's picture and the phrase "a gift from Grandpa Jim's garden;" on the other, instructions for late-fall planting.
Some people said they would use the garlic for lasagna that night. Others said they would follow the instructions and do their first-ever planting, thanks to "the Garlic Man."
Appropriately, the variety Dad favoured was an Ontario breed named Music. This was completely suitable for a man whose other great love was picking and grinning.
Like Dad's oversized passion for his garden, raising rabbits and making music, the Music breed at its best is elephantine in scale, with little resemblance to the shrivelled foreign garlic found in grocery stores for much of the year. When planted around rosebushes, it is effective in keeping bugs away. The taste cannot be equalled, either.
Native to Asia and cultivated for more than 6,000 years, garlic is commonly eaten around the world. While there are 70 different strains in the estimated 2,500 acres commercially planted in Ontario, Music is said to make up about 90 per cent of the total. But price-conscious Canadians import more than two-thirds of their garlic from China.
Dad had little use for store-bought Asian garlic, saying it was of little value on the rare occasions he was forced to use it as a substitute.
He made a point of downing at least one large clove a day, often raw, sometimes in his breakfast juice, to the chagrin of some health-care professionals who literally couldn't stomach the smell.
My guess is that most years he consumed three or four times as much as the 2.3 pounds reportedly eaten annually by the average North American.
Many a full head of garlic made its way into clay bakers at our house, oven roasted and later spread on fresh-baked bread for a delectable dinner treat.
It is important to exercise caution when indulging in this treat, however. We once had dinner guests who were newcomers to Canada and unfamiliar with garlic's charms. The two heads we had baked as a side dish for the meal sat largely untouched until a family member decided to go for it and consumed the lot.
Reminders of that meal oozed through the diner's pores for several days – an aroma that is not to everyone's liking.
Trying to locate Dad near his garden on weekends between mid-April and October was generally a futile exercise. Most often, he had loaded up his
trailer, grabbed his beloved Martin guitar and headed off across southern Ontario with his girlfriend Joan to a steam show, fiddle competition or some other rural gathering of the country music and bluegrass "gypsies" who were his tribe.
Like him, most were retired folks who loved nothing better than a weekend camping, playing, singing and telling stories, some of which were possibly even true. Dad died on a Friday evening at one of these gatherings, succumbing to a heart attack shortly after singing a few numbers in a friend's barn and wandering off to his trailer with promises to see everyone later.
It was fitting, then, that acoustic music played a large part at his funeral. A trio of fiddlers, including a granddaughter, cranked out Maple Sugar, Devil's Dream and other jigs and reels while more than 300 mourners took their seats in St. Marys United Church.
Five of his grandchildren sang or played, and a long-time musical friend played some Hank Williams hurtin' music as the family followed the casket out of the church an hour or so later.
At the rural cemetery where Dad's parents had been laid to rest more than 50 years earlier, the musicians started up again once the pastor had finished the committal service. Strains of Till We Meet Again, then Heart of Gold rang through the countryside.
When I returned months later to view the gravestone, someone had left a bulb of Music garlic beside Dad's grave.
Maybe I should sing some old country songs while planting this fall's garlic crop, to get it right.
Mike Strathdee lives in Kitchener, Ont.