Allium sativum, commonly known as garlic, is a species in the onion family . Garlic has been used throughout history for both culinary and medicinal purposes. It has a characteristic pungent, spicy flavor that mellows and sweetens considerably with cooking.

The cloves are used as seed, for consumption and for medicinal purposes. The leaves, stems and flowers on the head are also edible and most often consumed while immature and still tender. The flower heads can be dried and used in dried flower arrangements.

Allium sativum grows in the wild in areas where it has become naturalised; I first came in contact with it in the Mediterranean. It grows wild in the dunes and rocky cliffs near the shore line and in great abundance. One often "grabs" a few plants on the walk back from the beach in order to use in cooking. The flavor is softer and sweeter than commercial garlic.

Garlic is widely used around the world for its pungent flavor, as a seasoning or condiment.Garlic is essential to several Mediterranean dishes such as aioli of Provence and Spain, skordalia from Greece. Blending garlic, almond, oil and soaked bread produces ajoblanco for a refreshing cold Spanish soup.

It has been used as both food and medicine in many cultures for thousands of years, and is claimed to help prevent heart disease including atherosclerosis, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and cancer.

In 2007 a BBC news story reported that Allium sativum may have beneficial properties, such as preventing and fighting the common cold. This assertion has the backing of long tradition. Traditional British herbalism used garlic for hoarseness and coughs, both as a syrup and in a salve made of garlic and lard, which was rubbed on the chest and back.

In 1858, Louis Pasteur observed garlic's antibacterial activity, and it was used as an antiseptic to prevent gangrene during World War I and World War II. More recently it has been found from a clinical trial that a mouthwash containing 2.5% fresh garlic shows good antimicrobial activity, although the majority of the participants reported an unpleasant taste and halitosis.

n modern naturopathy, garlic is used as a treatment for intestinal worms and other intestinal parasites. Garlic cloves are used as a remedy for infections, digestive disorders, and fungal infections such as thrush.

Garlic has been reasonably successfully used in AIDS patients to treat cryptosporidium in an uncontrolled study in China.

Of all the remedies suggested, the one for fighting the common cold reminds me of when my grandfather, feeling a cold coming on, would need his "fix" to set him straight for the next day's work. I would procure several cloves of fresh garlic from the dirt cellar, peel them, crush them slightly, and immerse them in a shot glass filled with melted butter. The shot glass would rest on the stove top until it was warm. Then gramp (in his 90's) would drink the concoction in one gulp and immediately chase it down with a whiskey. The next day he was up at the crack of dawn and back in the fields!

Now that's saying something for the power of garlic!