There is perhaps no ingredient more fundamental to good cooking than garlic. It is the quiet workhorse of kitchens the world over, rarely the star of a dish yet almost always essential to it, slipped into a pan of softening onions or crushed into a dressing with barely a second thought. Pungent, warming and endlessly adaptable, garlic has earned its place as one of the most indispensable ingredients in culinary history. Garlic's origins trace back to Central Asia, where it gr