Curious Cook: A garlic-flavoured story

The Fete de l’Ail is a decades-old festival in France that is famous for pink garlic, a Unesco Intangible Heritage item. — CHRIS CHAN

One of my favourite fairs in the region here in France is the annual Fete de l’Ail or “Garlic Festival” in a regional town called Billom. The area around this town is famous for its production of ‘Ail Rose’ (pink garlic), an item which has been placed on the Unesco Intangible Heritage List in 2018. This garlic is planted between December/January in the clay-limestone soils on the plain of Limage and harvested in July every year, then dried in large bunches in barns.

The Billom garlic festival has been held for decades on the second weekend of August annually. The garlic crop sold is nicknamed the “white gold of Auvergne” even though production volume is down from years earlier and seemingly falling every year.