Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers

The film features more ingenious, mouth-watering uses of garlic than you might have thought possible, plenty of impromptu folk and flamenco, and a host of quirky evangelists...

"Garlic is as good as ten mothers... For keeping the girls away."

• traditional saying

The late documentary maker Les Blank was obsessed with food and music, two passions which came together with this 1980 hymn to the dionysian joys of allium sativum. Largely filmed at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California, the film features more ingenious, mouth-watering uses of garlic than you might have thought possible, plenty of impromptu folk and flamenco, and a host of quirky evangelists (plus a slightly confused Werner Herzog).

Blank’s recommendation was that several heads of garlic be roasted during the screening, to add to the sensual overload. Gardening and food writer Alys Fowler and baker Albert Smith have teamed up to to present this unique ‘Aromaround’ experience, which will also include a selection of other short films celebrating the strange magic of herbs.