One important category of fermented foods is fermented vegetables. When we think of fermented vegetable products, we often think of kimchi, pickles, and sauerkraut but one interesting food in this category is fermented garlic (Allium sativum). Check out this recipe for fermenting garlic at home.
Garlic is known for its “pungent” or “irritating” flavor, due to the conversion of alliin into allicin by the alliinase in the cells (Lee et al., 2019). Processing of garlic, by aging or fermentation, has been shown to reduce the “irritating” flavor (Lee et al., 2019). This makes fermented garlic a good example of fermentations that enhance sensory properties of a food. Additionally, fermented garlic has been shown to increase the antioxidant compounds in garlic, improving the nutritional value of this food (Tahir et al., 2022).
The typical players in vegetable fermentations include microorganisms from generas such as Leuconostoc, Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, and Tetragenococcus. In a study that conducted 16S rRNA sequence analysis of isolated lactic acid bacteria from garlic samples, several LAB were identified at 98-99% identity (Jung et al., 2012). These include Leuconostoc citreum, Leuconostoc mesenteroides, Leuconostoc lactis, Weissella cibaria, Weissella paramesenteroides, and Lactobacillus curvatus (Jung et al., 2012).
Have you tried fermented garlic? Some recipes suggest pre-peeled garlic – would you anticipate differences in the final product when using pre-peeled garlic vs. peeling garlic yourself? If you are interested, research the answer to this question – what can happen in this process that causes the fermentation to turn blue?
Image Credit: Ally, “Crave the Good”