A little history of garlics and Provençal aïoli
And also
The tops
What’s this?
Everybody knows this famous Provencal garlic mayonnaise, whose name comes from the French word ail (″garlic″) and the Provencal one oli, ″oil″.
People eat it with cold meat, eggs, or a simple piece of bread…
They make the ″big aioli″ 3 times in the year, it’s a special meal for celebrations: we can eat it with boiled cod and eggs, vegetables and snails. Yum!
The little history
In Antic times, people used garlic as a medicine. Pliny said it was good against the consumption.
But garlic had also a bad reputation: those who ate too much could not enter in a temple dedicated to Cybele! Why? Because of the smell, maybe?
In the Middle Ages, people ate plenty of garlic. Especially in Southern France.
They ate a kind of sauce named aillée (made of garlic, almonds, bread and broth).
Medieval recipes suggested ″a garlic sauce with milk″, another sauce made of garlic, ginger and broth… and even a sauce with garlic and mustard. Ancestor of our aioli?