On the Greek island of longevity, where people often live to 100, we swear by this ingredient: ‘I use it every day’

My family is from the Greek island of Ikaria, a Blue Zone renowned for the longevity of its inhabitants. To us, garlic has long been more than “just” an ingredient. 

Garlic is one of the defining components of the Mediterranean diet. I use it every day at almost every meal when I cook for myself or my family. During the weeks I run my cooking classes on the island, we use so much of it that one of my kitchen assistants takes half a dozen or so heads of garlic home with her each night to peel and store in water for the following day. 

Modern-day Ikarians swear by garlic as folk medicine, too. Many of my garlic lessons come from an old family friend, Yiorgos Stenos, a spry beekeeper in his 90s. He lives and eats the way Ikarians of yore always have: simply, with gentle exercise and purpose. He still works! And he turns to nature as the first resort for most ailments. 

From him I learned of the old Ikarian remedy, an infusion of sage, mountain tea, pine honey, and garlic that, as he put it, “was the ‘penicillin’ of my generation.” He grew up making this infusion either as preventative medicine or at the onset of a cold. “It kept us healthy all winter long back then,” he says. 

Science has caught up with the empirical wisdom of country folk medicine. The stinking rose has several health and longevity benefits, research shows. Garlic can help boost our immune system, for example, and lower blood pressure. 

Luckily, garlic makes almost anything taste better. It’s in the vast majority of the recipes in my most recent book, “The Ikaria Way,” and I can’t imagine life without it. 

Here are a few of my favorite ways to use garlic in the kitchen:

Skordalia is a Greek classic consumed with unabashed pleasure on Ikaria. It’s a garlic spread that belongs to the litany of great Mediterranean garlic spreads, such as pistou and aioli, like my Greek-mustard aioli. 

On Ikaria, we make skordalia with either bread or potato as the base, plus lots of garlic, sea salt, lemon juice or vinegar, and extra virgin Greek olive oil. I like to make mine with stale sourdough and sometimes sprinkle crushed or chopped nuts or seeds on top. 

This dip pairs particularly well with crispy fried or baked vegetable fritters as well as fried fish, especially cod.

Garlic can star in your salad dressings. Sometimes I grate it, like in my mixed fresh and dried three-bean salad recipe. I then add it to apple cider vinegar, honey, olive oil, dill, and salt and pepper. 

I take a different approach in my kale and Greek yogurt version of a classic Caeser salad. I make a paste out of garlic with anchovy in the food processor and add yogurt, mustard, and lemon juice before tossing it with kale and chickpeas. 

It’s a key ingredient in my recipe for kale with olive oil, oranges, and garlic, inspired by a traditional food from the Mani region of Greece. I cook the kale in soft garlic to infuse its flavor into the dish, which can be served hot, warm, or at room temperature.

Countless plant-based recipes on the island call for garlic, some traditional and some contemporary. 

Green bean stew with garlic, which is great as a main course, is a popular recipe all over Greece and on Ikaria as well. Another green bean stew recipe with corn, called mageirio, is traditional on the island and similarly calls for a generous amount of garlic. 

The most popular and traditional vegetable dish on Ikaria is called soufico, an adaptable stew or casserole made seasonally with different vegetables. It typically includes eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, and potatoes, and in winter sometimes sweet potatoes and butternut squash. No matter the variation, it always calls for garlic. 

Garlic has inspired newer veg-forward creations, like my recipe for chicory greens sizzled with olive oil, garlic, ginger, and hot pepper flakes. 

You can make an easy dinner in under half an hour by introducing pasta into the vegetable-and-garlic mix. 

Some of my favorite iterations include: 

• Garlicky broccoli spaghetti, which uses six (yes, six) cloves of garlic as a flavor enhancer in a simple dish.
• Skordomakaronada, or crunchy garlic-rusk pasta, a rustic and traditional Greek pasta dish that uses slivered garlic cooked in olive oil, combined with grated tomatoes and topped with crushed barley rusks. The garlic adds depth to the tomato sauce, making it a hearty vegetarian option.
• Pasta tossed with Greek yogurt and herbs, which features minced garlic sautéed with onions and mixed with pasta, Greek yogurt, and fresh herbs of your choice, such as rosemary parsley, oregano, marjoram, basil, mint, fennel, and/or thyme. The garlic contributes to the overall flavor profile, creating a creamy and tangy dish.

Garlic is integral to cooking the main Ikarian animal protein, goat. One of my favorite ways to do that is in a lemony goat stew with blackened garlic, which you can replace with traditional cloves.

Historically, Ikarians ate meat only once in a while. This stew is perfect to enjoy on a Sunday or for a festive occasion, as Ikarians have been doing for generations. 

Diane Kochilas is the host and co-executive producer of “My Greek Table,” runs the Glorious Greek Cooking School on her native island Ikaria, and is the author of 18 books on Greek cuisine, including most recently, “The Ikaria Way: 100 Delicious Plant-Based Recipes Inspired by My Homeland, the Greek Island of Longevity.”

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