The Spanish town of Montalbán de Córdoba, where the entrepreneur Manuel Vaquero lives, and the farthest place where his garlic is grown, are separated by 8,650 kilometres in a straight line. This is already remarkable, but even more exceptional is the exact place where those plants are growing. It is the Navajo Indian reservation; 71,000 square kilometres between the states of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico; the equivalent of Belgium and the Netherlands combined.
Manuel Vaquero, 68, is one of the main producers of garlic in Spain (six million kilos a year) and is also a restless entrepreneur who has not stopped innovating. Four years ago, for example, he noticed that a little-known product in Europe, black garlic, was starting to be coveted in haute cuisine, so he began cultivating it, later becoming the largest European producer, with 200,000 kilos per year. His company, La Abuela Carmen, is also the only one in the world that produces black onions.
The extraordinary agreement with the Navajos began three years ago, when the reservation's general director approached him at a sector fair in the United States. "He proposed to plant our garlic there because they needed to introduce crops that would create jobs in the reservation, and garlic is a plant that requires a lot of manpower," explains Manuel. "We started last November with the planting of two hectares of Spanish purple garlic, which is the one preferred by the US market, as a test to see how the crop would do, but we are sure it will do well, because the temperatures there are very similar to those in Andalusia."
The plants are already 15 centimetres tall and he estimates that they will yield between 18,000 and 22,000 kilos of garlic. If nothing goes wrong, next autumn they will expand by planting another 80 hectares. "It is impressive to see how much land they have there; 100,000 hectares of cultivated irrigated land," affirms the entrepreneur, dazzled by his visit to the reservation last September. "They have their own jurisdiction, their courts and police. They are subject to federal laws, but with full autonomy."
The agreement he has with the Navajos means that he supplies the seeds and the machinery and they are paid a share for growing the garlic and bringing them to the port of Dallas. "That is where we would ship them, in any case, because the possibilities that have opened up in the US for Spanish garlic are extraordinary."
Manuel Vaquero explains that garlic from China, which dominates the market with 80% of the world production (120,000 million kilos) and which could not be beaten until recently in terms of prices, has been affected by a cold wave that hit 20% of the production, as well as by the tariffs that have been imposed on it. In Europe, the Chinese are allowed to introduce 47 million kilos of garlic without tariffs, but anything above that is imposed a 1.2 Euro per kilo fee. In the US, the tariff, regardless of the volume shipped, is of 375%.
"This makes our garlic very competitive. This year, possibly more than 10 million kilos of Spanish garlic have been shipped to the US, while a few years ago we did not export anything, because they bought it all from China."
La Abuela Carmen already exports 1.5 million kilos of normal garlic per year to the North American market, which is now also opening to its black garlic; a variety that, so far, had practically only been distributed in Spain. Contrary to what is commonly thought, the dark colour of black garlic is neither the result of using a special seed, nor of painting the original, as has been suggested to Manuel Vaquero in the US, making him laugh. There are only four types of garlic worldwide: white garlic, violet spring, California white and Spanish purple, since "garlic does not allow sexual reproduction, does not produce fertile flowers and cannot be crossed with others," explains Manuel.
Black garlic is obtained by introducing the cloves or whole heads of one of these four varieties into chambers, where they are subjected to temperatures of about 70-75 degrees Celsius and a humidity of 80% for 60 days. "The result is a product that has nothing to do with the original. All the spicy compounds are transformed into sugar and the garlic acquires a strong liquorice flavour, with properties equal or better than those of the original," explains the expert.
Many doctors recommend consuming a clove or two of raw garlic with an empty stomach because of the health benefits attributed to it: it has antioxidant properties, it protects against cell damage and ageing, helps with cholesterol levels and diabetes, decreases the risk of cardiovascular disease, etc. Black garlic retains all the product's original properties (with some, such as the antioxidant effect, actually improving) and has the advantage that it does not smell or taste like the original.
Manuel Vázquez eats three or four cloves every day. One of his plans is also to show the Indians how to transform the garlic that they are already growing into black garlic, so they can produce it on the reservation. It will be Spanish black garlic in Navajo territory!
Source: elmundo.es
