Garlic soup

In Eastern European culture, garlic is a sacred ingredient, revered for its miraculous ability to heal and protect both body and spirit. The echoes of pagan traditions are still palpable in the region, reflected in people’s deep connection to nature and their intuitive understanding of food’s curative powers.

Its nutritional properties, evident in garlic’s ability to ease everything from common colds to digestive troubles, gave rise to the belief that it can ward off evil, like the Dybbuks of Ashkenazi folklore to the Dracula of Transylvanian stories. Serving as a barrier between the natural and the supernatural, it is believed that garlic is potent enough to repel death itself.

The tradition of making garlic soups exists across much of Eastern Europe’s western regions from Transylvania, in both Romanian and Hungarian communities, to Ukrainian Galicia and Poland, and on to Czechia and Slovakia. Made as a creamy soup with roasted garlic (as in Poland, Galicia and Romania) or as a chunky broth with chopped up cloves (as in Czechia and Slovakia), these soups are celebrated as the indisputable warriors against common colds and hangovers.

Whatever you are trying to fend off, this rich and sweet soup should definitely have a place in your cold-weather cooking repertoire.

This recipe is taken from Lozhka: Eastern European Soups, Stews & Other Things to Eat with a Spoon by Alissa Timoshkina (Quadrille, £28).