I want to discuss green garlic again.

In one of the greatest cookbooks ever published, Chez Panisse Cooking, Alice Waters and Paul Bertolli write: "Garlic is commonly used as a mature plant when the bulb containing many cloves has formed. Green garlic is the same plant pulled from the ground at a much earlier stage, before the bulb forms and when the plant resembles a leek, with a stalk about 1/2 inch in diameter.”

That quote was probably my first introduction to green garlic. Though it may have been years later that I actually got my hands on any. Because even in Los Angeles, where we have year round access to the greatest produce in the world green garlic is only just now becoming fairly common at the springtime Farmers Market. To make this point I’ll quote Alice Waters once again: “Until recently, green garlic never appeared in the market and was largely unrecognized by cooks. The quality of green garlic is unique and of great use in the kitchen”.

So you see green garlic is not exactly a new ingredient to me, but it’s not exactly a staple in my life either. It took me a while but reading her words has made me a little bit obsessed with green garlic at the moment. So I am bringing it back for another look. This time in a soup. I have much to learn and Alice Waters may be the perfect teacher.

Let’s have a history lesson.

I was always a good student. I was one of those kids that did well in almost every subject (notice I said almost…numbers still elude me).

But numbers aside, history was/is particularly delicious to me.

Cooking has an interesting history of course. You don’t have to go all the way back to medieval times to find a fascinating tale.

In fact I have a fun story for you. In the 1960s & 70s, in this country at least, the foodie-world was abuzz with the suddenly “discovered” truth behind “classical French cuisine”. It was brought to our attention by the commendable talents of Julia Child. Her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking changed the way American home cooks like my mother began to look at gourmet food.

As I have said before. I was raised on this kind of fare. I was a nine year old who liked chicken liver pâté. I knew crêpe was not pronounced crape, and sauces always started with bones.

But things can never stay just as they are, now can they? In fact changes were afoot in the culinary world. Because just as Ms. Child was introducing Americans to classical French cooking; classical French cooking was being challenged or perhaps re-interpretted in of all places– France!