MANY PEOPLE have mixed feelings about garlic. The sometimes pungent smell earns this root crop the oxymoron 'the Stinking Rose'. And like its versatile flavour, the garlic is surrounded by a variety of cures, both myths and facts.
The first garlic
Apart from its common association with vampires, there is a different theory in the Philippines to explain the origins of garlic.
The myth relates to a maiden so beautiful that a suitor kills her fiance. In turn, the suitor is killed for the murder. Distraught because she believes that her beautiful face has caused so many deaths, she asks the god Bathala to remove her from Earth.
One day, her mother finds a white clove sprouting from the ground, and a supernatural voice tells her the clove is her daughter's tooth. The mother is grateful for the miracle, and plants the seeds all over the field. And so the garlic plant was born.
Garlic as a charm
Humans have long believed that garlic possesses energy to ward off evil forces. Each country has its own variation of the garlic versus vampire battle. Ancient Egyptians believed that a wreath of garlic could kill a vampire-like ghost who murdered children while they slept.