Finally Braiding the Garlic
This is the Broadleaf Czech garlic that I planted as individual cloves at the end of October, and dug out as mature heads during the first week of June. It's been ignored, while hanging in the shed for the past two months.
Today, I brought it out to my front porch. Cleaning and braiding it is a messy process that I didn't want to do indoors. Also, a reminder that you can only braid soft-neck garlic. [If you plant grocery store garlic, the hard-neck types will have a conspicuous stem, like a thin wooden dowel, running up the middle.]
As you can see, the leaf is well dried, but it is sturdy and flexible. I begin by trimming the scape to 6 or 7".
On the left, a dried, unwashed garlic head. Several layers are peeled away, and the roots trimmed.
The simplest braid is a 3-strand, just like a girl's pigtail. I hold three heads with the heads away and the scape toward me, do a couple of lays of the braid, then add three more heads with each series of 3 lays. The scapes at the end are tied with some of the trimmed away leaf.
The large heads. This is about half the garlic shown in the initial photo.
Sometimes my braids are nice and even; sometimes not so much. Even if you seldom cook with garlic (a pity), a braid of garlic hanging in the kitchen is a comforting sight.
Bob
