Allium sativum, known in anglo-saxon as the spear-leek, and hence to us as garlic, is one of the oldest gastronomical plants known to man. It is believed to have originated in central Asia a few thousand years ago, and to have been spread across the known world by humans who just can't get enough of the stuff. It was the staple food of Egyptian pyramid-builders, and came over to the New World with the earliest Spanish explorers. Today there are countless varieties of garlic cultivated the world over, including cultivars that have become uniquely identified with particular regions.

Fairway usually keeps at least a couple of varieties of garlic available, so I gathered a few over the course of a few weeks and decided to do a little taste test. I use a fair amount of garlic in my cooking, so I thought I'd try to identify my favorite one. I was able to find four varieties: one from California and three from France.

Clockwise, from the upper left, these are (1) L'Ail Rose de Lautrec, the famous pink garlic of the Midi-Pyrénées, famous for its use in cassoulet; (2) standard American white garlic, from California; (3) L'Ail Violet de Cadours, a lesser-known purple variety from southwestern France, not far from Lautrec; and (4) L'Ail Fumé d'Arleux, the famed smoked garlic of northern France.

Each of these garlics has its own peculiar history. Clotilde has ably described the culture of pink garlic. Purple garlic is something of a stepchild to its pink cousin; situated on the opposite side of Toulouse from Lautrec, Cadours is still seeking an AOC designation for its signature product. Cadours produces about 800 tons of garlic annually, compared to about 4,000 tons in Lautrec.

The garlic you're used to seeing in the supermarket is a white variety prevalent in California, and particularly associated with the town of Gilroy, the self-proclaimed Garlic Capital of the World. Gilroy assumed this title in imitation of Arleux, the home of my last garlic variety. In Arleux, in the cold and humid North, the farmers learned to smoke their own variety of pink garlic sometime around the sixteenth century. It is hypothesized that the discovery was made by accident, as the smoke of kitchen fires improved the flavor and shelf-life of braids of garlic stored indoors. The garlic of Arleux is woven into magnificent braids and cold-smoked for ten days.

This is all fine and good as a history lesson, but I wanted to know how all this garlic tastes. To get a fair sampling, I prepared each variety three ways: (1) raw, both straight and rubbed on dry toast; (2) dry-roasted unpeeled cloves; and (3) peeled cloves confited in olive oil. The roasting and confiting were both done at low heat to allow the garlic time to caramelize. Safety Note: if you're going to confit garlic, you should either use the oil right away or discard it; garlic is known to harbor Clostridium botulinum spores, which can survive low-temperature cooking and thrive in an anaerobic environment like a layer of organic sediment sealed with oil.

So do these different varieties of garlic taste different? Absolutely. The California garlic was by far the sharpest of the bunch. Raw it was firey and harsh; cooked it was mellowed but still had considerable bite. Eating too much of this stuff could definitely cause some serious indigestion. The pink garlic was much milder, even when raw. Cooked, it became quite sweet and mellow, very smooth. The dry-roasted preparation was superior to the confit; the heavy flavor of olive oil overpowers this delicate allium. My violet garlic seemed to have suffered from poor storage; it had a faint aroma of mildew, and had begun to develop light green shoots in the center of the bulbs (a dead giveaway of garlic past its prime, such shoots must be removed prior to cooking or they will become bitter). Beyond that, I would say its characteristics were similar to those of the pink garlic (which also suffered a bit from age, but not to the same degree). The smoked garlic, however, was by far my favorite. Nearly as mild as the pink garlic, it had the added dimension of gentle hardwood smoke. This made it complex enough to be satisfying raw, and added a layer of intrigue to the cooked preparations. Given its expense, I would only use this garlic in a dish where it's going to be the star performer, but when allowed to shine, it is really quite remarkable. The added expense of the other French garlics is similarly unjustifiable where the garlic is going to be playing only a supporting role (in a tomato sauce or as part of a marinade, for example). California garlic may be harsh, but it's cheaper than dirt.

A few pointers for would-be garlic aficionados. First, select whole heads of garlic that have a taut, unbroken layer of paper, and none of those gray or black speckles around the root (that's mold, and you can taste it). Choose heads that are heavy for their size and have firm bulbs -- this indicates high water content, which in turn indicates freshness and proper storage (and makes cooking easier). The odor of garlic comes from sulfur compounds formed by the degeneration of the fat-soluble molecule allicin, garlic's primary defense mechanism and a powerful antimicrobial, antifungal, insect-repellent chemical. Unfortunately, there is no proven way to eliminate allicin's odor, which continues to develop in our bellies as we digest it. This is why garlic breath can last for hours or even days, and why a heaping dose of garlic can reveal its odor in your sweat. Some suggest eating parsley, the digestion of which does release certain compounds that neutralize or counteract foul odors. But when all is said and done, the consumption of garlic will inevitably make you stink to some degree. There's a bright side though, captured in an New York yiddish proverb: A nickel will get you on the subway, but garlic will get you a seat.