Scapes are great

The term “scape” describes a structure that emerges from the tops of some garlic plants. Scapes are not flowers, but are often referred to as “garlic flowers,” and are flower-like in many important ways. For one, they’re beautiful, shooting from the plant like a slow-motion rocket ship. It charts a circular path, with two consecutive 360-degree rotations, like a cartoon pig’s tail. After a few more days the scape will uncurl and stand up straight, 3 feet off the ground, and the tip will open in a very flower-like way, and produce seed-like structures called bulbules. Thanks to botanical nuance you can’t accurately call them flowers, but you can, at least, call them garlic. More importantly, you can eat them like garlic.

I first ate scapes on a train from Beijing, China to Ulan Bator, Mongolia. On the dining car, I was served a plate of stir-fried chopped green things with pork and oyster sauce, alongside rice. At first I thought the pencil-thick green plant sections were string beans, but the taste was pure garlic.

Most large commercial growers prefer to grow the non-scape-producing garlic varieties, collectively called softneck garlic. Softneck garlic is less work for the grower, precisely because there are no scapes to deal with.

If the scapes aren’t picked, then the growth of the bulbs – the plant part that we typically refer to as garlic – will be stunted. Picking scapes is based, essentially, on the same principle by which steers are castrated. Without gonads to cater to, the organism loses an outlet for energy and grows larger. In the case of garlic, assuming one is growing a scape-producing hardneck garlic variety, yanking the scapes will allow the bulbs to grow larger.

Hardneck garlic varieties are popular with the kind of small-scale farmers that sell at farmers markets, local coops and high-end grocery stores, and these are the places where scapes can be found, sold by the bunch, through June.

Garlic flowers are versatile in the kitchen and fun to work with. They can be cooked like a vegetable, such as in recipes that might call for string beans or asparagus. Or the scapes can be minced and used as a flavoring, as garlic is. The less you cook the scapes, the brighter green they remain, and more spicy, raw garlic flavor is retained. If you cook them until navy green, they will become sweeter and softer.

To garlic gardeners, scapes are a welcome treat in springtime, helping the grower bide his time, and providing him some garlic to eat, until the summertime harvest of bulbs.

Garlic growers and scape eaters alike share a common interest in the scape being harvested before or during its curled phase. Once it begins to stand up and be straightend, the scape becomes woody, much as asparagus will.

Waiting this long to harvest the scapes means they end up spending a lot of time on the plant, siphoning resources away from the bulbs. So I harvest my scapes as soon as they appear, pulling straight up on the flowering stalk with a gentle tug, like pulling a blade of grass.

To prepare them, cut off the tip, as they tend to dry out, and check the other ends for any sign of woodiness, and break off any woody ends.

Here are three ways to prepare them: as pesto, with lamb and Indian spices, and with pork and oyster sauce, like I had on the train to Mongolia. All of these recipes use a dozen scapes.

Garlic Flower Pesto

One dozen scapes
Half-teaspoon of salt
3 (or so) ounces of grated Parmesan or Pecorino Romano (a lot of leeway here)
A stalk or two’s worth of basil leaves
1/3 cup pine nuts, cashew nuts, or the pesto nut of your choice
Squirt of lemon juice and some zest
Olive oil, as needed (roughly ¾ cup)

In a food processor, whizz the scapes into a green and white confetti. Add salt, cheese, basil, nuts, and lemon to the food processor, and resume spinning. Begin adding olive oil slowly. Add just enough oil so that the pesto just starts to freely vortex like a liquid. Taste, adjust any ingredients you wish, and continue processing until smooth.

Adding more basil will tilt the flavor away from garlic pesto and more toward a garlicky basil pesto. Serve with pasta, or whatever else you make with pesto.

Lamb Scapes

1 pound lamb stew meat, cut into one-inch cubes.
¼ cup olive oil
1 dozen scapes, chopped into roughly 2-inch sections
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp cumin seeds
Red chile powder to taste.
½ cup red wine
½ cup water

Fry the lamb chunks in olive oil on medium heat, turning often until browned. Add spices and salt and stir around. Add the water and wine to the pan, cover with a tight-fitting lid until the liquid has all but evaporated. Add the scapes, and stir-fry until the scapes reach your desired level of doneness (spicy bright green or sweeter dark green). Remove from heat and serve with rice.

Garlic Flowers with Pork and Oyster Sauce

½ lb pork belly or bacon
Oil, if necessary
One dozen scapes
Basil leaves (1/4 cup)
Red chili flakes (to taste, or serve with chili paste)
Garlic powder (a pinch or two)
½ teaspoon black pepper
1/3 cup oyster sauce (choose the brand with the fewest ingredients. I like Lee Kum Kee Premium 

Cut pork into domino-sized pieces, and fry on medium heat. Add oil if the pork is too lean. While the pork cooks, cut garlic flowers into inch-long segments. When all the water has been released from the meat and evaporated off and the pork is splattering its way to brown, crispy bacon-bliss, add the cut garlic flowers, chili flakes and garlic powder. Stir-fry until the garlic flowers are just barely cooked and neon-green, add the basil leaves, black pepper and oyster sauce, and turn off the heat. Stir it around for long enough to evenly mix. Adjust chili, black pepper and oyster sauce to taste, seasoning with soy sauce if you wish. Serve with rice.