Free to taste the most sulphurous of condiments: Billom's garlic
Garlic, this superfood, a health ally since billom.
Here is one that has unfairly bad press! However, this garlic is very elegant, with its spiky hair, its very fine and soft skin, its pink reflections. Yet it is heavy in the hand, bloated with nutrients, vitamins and minerals. Both antibacterial, antivirus, antioxidant, it also reduces bad cholesterol, it reduces the risk of hypertension and cardiovascular disease. It even helps fight cancer. A well-stocked curriculum vitae, don't you think?
Garlic, a condiment considered a vegetable around the Mediterranean, has been cultivated in this way since the XNUMXth century.e century in Billom and the surrounding area. The clay-limestone soils favor its cultivation. In this geographic area, pink garlic stands out. Its culture is then registered in the intangible cultural heritage of France. Producers cultivate it in the open field and harvest it from July. Then, after a time of drying in the air, in height and sheltered from the sun, the garlic can be sold.
An annual production that awakens your taste buds
The Garlic Fair, at the beginning of August, inaugurates each year the launch of the new harvest. Too petrified at the thought of having bad breath? Then chew parsley, mint or coffee beans. Or keep in mind that all the guests ate the same dish. That your immune defenses are better than the neighbor. Or that you are single anyway.
How to choose the right garlic in Livradois-Forez? Favor the most natural cultures possible and without anti-germination treatment which alters the product.
A proven recipe
The Grand Goussiers d'Auvergne brotherhood shares their recipe with you below:
Billom's garlic soup recipe – 2 liters of soup for 2 heads of Billom's pink garlic
1/ Preparation of the garlic paste
Chop the garlic heads. Bring the whole garlic cloves to a boil in ½ of the milk and ½ of the water. Cook gently for 10 minutes. Drain the water then remove the skin from the pods by pinching it with your fingertips.
2/Brown Billom's pink garlic paste in olive oil, taking care not to burn it.
3/Make 2 liters of fatty broth with two marrow bones and two bay leaves. Cook 3/4 potatoes intended to be mashed.
4/ Wet the mixture obtained with the fatty broth. Add the mashed potatoes. Stir.
5/ Put back on the heat and simmer for a few minutes. Serve with garlic croutons.
To be enjoyed with a bottle of Côtes d'Auvergne.