Smoked Garlic from Arleux

The garlic from Arleux is smoked, since the XVIth century, with the local peat, whose local people were useful to maintain their fire. The smoked garlic from Arleux is a bulb of small size. The variety used is the "red of Arleux", a pink garlic with purplished late of which there are several alternatives coming from heterogeneous local seeds produced with the farm. A seed is now identified, Gayant, is marketed under certification by the G.I.E. Artois-bulb and should become the standard. It comes from the selection of two local stocks.

The smoked garlic from Arleux is thus a late garlic on which a traditional method and a human made knowledge of braiding and of manuring to the local peat, confers one year on the other an exceptional conservation. The smoked garlic from Arleux is presented in long lengthily fume braids (10 days approximately). However the peels of the bulb and "caïeux" make that the perfume of smoke remains very discrete while the conservation is largely prolonged. The smoked garlic from Arleux is strong, its taste is very marked and it releases, of course, a subtle flavour of smoked. Alternatives exist with white garlic or garlic of midday, an early garlic collected in June and not preserving itself.