If you’re lucky, when you linger for a moment in damp and shady woodland spaces on these stretchy spring days, you might catch the scent of an Irish seasonal food treasure: wild garlic.
Viewed by some as a superfood, you can recognise the smooth, oval leaves of this low-key perennial from their carpet-like growth pattern over woodland floors and, often, the more remote ends of city parks. The plant’s beautifully delicate white flowers, now in bloom and also edible, are like small stars growing in clusters.
For an immediate thrill, you can pick up a single leaf, scrunch it between your fingers and inhale. If it’s allowed, though, try to gather a few leaves to bring home to your kitchen. Just be careful not to ruin it for others or the wider environment, as outlined by Michelin-starred Galway chef JP McMahon in The Irish Times a few years ago. The two rules, he said, are simple: never take the root and only ever take one third of the growth when foraging.
With those caveats in mind, he provided a gorgeously simple recipe for wild garlic pesto pasta, which he said could be made a little less garlicky with some flat-leaf parsley.
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Also in our archive, McMahon has suggested preserving wild garlic in oil, which can be frozen if not being used immediately.
Lilly Higgins has also written about her love of wild garlic, providing a recipe for wild garlic soup with coriander and chilli, with courgette also included. She has featured a simple recipe for farinata (a kind of unleavened pancake) with wild garlic and root vegetables too; it takes 10 minutes to prepare and 20 to cook.
Wild garlic season in Ireland can last up to early June, so there’s no panic in getting out to appreciate its pleasures. Just remember to leave some behind so that the crop can return next year.
