As you may know, elephant garlic is not a true garlic; it a leek.Many people think of it as garlic so we grow it. It was not easy for me to admit that elephant garlic is not true garlic because it looks and acts so much like garlic and was the very first garlic we grew.When I bought Ron Engeland's book, "Growing Great Garlic", and he described it as a leek, rather than a garlic, I was almost offended and set out to find out for myself whether he was right or not. I taste tested all 10 of those first strains I bought from him and when I finally taste tested the elephant garlic, I suspected instantly that he was right.The following year I bought 25 more strains and taste tested them and I knew for certain that he was right. Taste alone will tell the educated palate that it is not a true garlic, one need not be a botanist. All garlic species are botanically classified as Allium Sativum and elephant garlic is Allium Ampeloprasum, formerly Allium Gigantum.

Large elephant garlic is about twice the size of the largest real garlics or larger and has a milder taste but with a sharp onion-like edge to it and a distinctive aftertaste. They average five monstrously large cloves that are somewhat yellowish compared the milky whiteness of true garlic cloves. It also has far less allicin potential than real garlic but grows extremely clean and disease free and does not seem to be bothered by insects. In our experience, it stores very hard and clean much longer than real garlic (even when separated into individual cloves, it will store about a year at room temp).

Unlike real garlic it produces bottom bulbils called corms that have very hard shells with sharp pointed tops and they store even longer than the bulbs. The corms are attached to the bottoms of the bulbs but grow up their sides and are often incorporated into the bulb wrappers several layers deep. The bulb wrappers on elephant garlic are extremely white and they cure out to be very thin and flaky and are intact only on freshly harvested bulbs. After a few months they seem to evaporate, leaving bare or almost bare bulbs that have a rather rough look but it does not seem to affect their storability much, only their attractiveness.

Elephant garlic is so mild you can take a whole bulb of it and slice the cloves into quarter inch thick steaks, sauté them in butter or olive oil and serve them as a vegetable.