Sometime back in the early '30s my uncle Hubert finished his internship at one of the smaller hospitals in Poughkeepsie, New York, took a pretty young wife, Sophia, and set up practice in his mother-in-law's rambling house on Garvin Street. His mother-in-law, whom everybody called Auntie Bella, was a formidable woman. She was, in the first place, large—not merely plump, not fat only, but tall, large-boned, and heavy-fleshed. She had a booming bass voice with which she sounded all her opinions to anyone who would listen. If no one would, she told her marvelous tales of the evil eye and of the time her cousin Giuseppe was robbed by bandits to the four cats who were constantly stalking in and out of the kitchen. The cats were swollen with pride and with tasty tidbits that Auntie Bella was always feeding them—a little dab of chicken cooked in a red sauce, for instance. "Here, cat … good, no?" And the cat would purr, gobble down the last shred, and stare greedily into the empty dish.
The cats were not the only fortunate ones to taste Auntie Bella's savory sauces and delicate pastries. All day long she urged cups of steaming minestrone on the mailman, tortoni on the milkman, a golden slice of sweet bread, pandoro di Verona, on the grocery delivery boy, little anise cookies on any child within hailing range. And when mealtime finally arrived, the table, far from being diminished by her generous taste-givings, was laden with so many steaming, fragrant dishes that we could heap our oversize plates full and still not have sampled everything that was on the table.
Uncle hubert was a spare eater, and the sight of those groaning tables thrice daily made him uneasy. In the days when he was courting Sophia, Auntie Bella urged the steaming dishes on him; he would take only a tiny portion, and she would snatch the ladle from his reluctant hand and heap his plate ever higher, until the lake of spaghetti sauce threatened to overflow onto the snowy tablecloth. But Uncle Hubert was a stubborn man, and he lectured Auntie Bella on the dangers of overeating, and the strain on the heart from excess weight. Auntie Bella thundered back at him the longevity tables of her entire family for three generations. She told him all her relatives lived to be at least 87, and any one of the four huge meals a day that they ate made her table look like a snack for gnats. But Hubert ate only as much as he wanted and then sat quietly thinking of the day when he would be married to Sophia and be master in the house; the huge meals would certainly stop. Auntie Bella's thoughts ran along rather different lines. Daily she told the cats how she would fatten Hubert up when he and Sophia were married, and that once he fell under the spell of her rich cooking there would be an end to this quibbling over meals.
The day of the wedding came, and late that evening, as Hubert and his bride were leaving for Niagara Falls, he looked at his mother-in-law in a masterful manner and said, "When Sophia and I come back, we will eat simple, small meals, and there will be no rich sauces. And one thing more: There is never, never to be any garlic in my food. I have my patients to think of, and I can't go about reeking of garlic. So, no garlic!" And he glared sternly at Auntie Bella, who was standing slack-jawed at this traitorous speech.
The moment the door closed behind Hubert and Sophia, Auntie Bella melted into a river of laughter that sent the cats flying behind the velvet drapes. No garlic! Garlic was more often used in Auntie's Bella's kitchen than salt—than water, even. To do without garlic? Impossible! Impossible and mad.
The great purple strings of fragrant garlic that festooned Auntie Bella's kitchen were more than seasoning and piquant touches to otherwise dull sauces. Garlic was the mainstay, the rock upon which her cooking was founded. And then, too, any fool knew the other properties of garlic. Garlic was a sovereign remedy for all sorts of ailments; garlic warded off the evil eye; garlic at the foot of the bed of a newly wedded couple ensured that the firstborn would be a son. With this thought, Auntie Bella was off to tie garlic cloves to the springs of her new son-in-law's marriage bed. Underneath so he wouldn't see them.
Two weeks later Hubert and Sophia were back. Hubert, after a hasty peck at the garlic-flavored cheek of his mother-in-law, went at once to his office, where he arranged all the waiting-room chairs, hung a fresh sign in his window announcing visiting hours, and retired to his inner office to smoke a cigar and await the patients. Dusk was falling when Sophia came down and told him that dinner was ready. As they started up the stairway toward the living quarters, the fragrant aroma of garlic smote Hubert's nostrils, and his eyes flashed wildly for a moment, but he drew a deep breath and went into the dining room. The table was loaded more than usual, for was this not a homecoming feast? Platters of fried zucchini, spinach pie, ravioli, pompano, and garmugia (a beef stew) crowded each other. Huge bowls of eggplant with parmesan cheese, red spaghetti sauce, white clam sauce, and shrimp buongustaio sent up a heavy mist of steam. And over the table like a palpable cloud hung the heavy, pervasive aroma of garlic. Auntie Bella had outdone herself. Hubert took several shallow breaths and abruptly excused himself. The front door quivered as it slammed, and Sophia burst into tears. Auntie Bella sat her daughter down at the table, filled her plate, and commanded her to eat, but Sophia cried salty tears into the zucchini for ten minutes.
Then they both heard the door downstairs open and close. Footsteps came up the stairway. Hubert appeared in the doorway, slightly flushed and bearing in his hand a limp white package wrapped in butcher's paper. He went directly to the kitchen, found a frying pan, and brought it to Auntie Bella. "I will have these two chops cooked without garlic, if you please." Muttering, Auntie Bella cooked the chops, spitefully burning one of them on the edge, but Uncle Hubert ate them with relish and recommended them to his two dining companions. Aside from the crunching of chop bones and the salty plop of tears into the zucchini, dinner was a silent affair, for Auntie Bella sat deep in thought, plotting. The idea of garlicless meals filled her with a despair that soon gave way to the urge to battle. Waving an invisible banner painted with garlic cloves, she decided on a daring plan.
The next evening found the table lean and spare, with two lonely chops adorning each of the three plates. In the center of the table, as a concession to a possible ravenous appetite, nine tomato slices lay on a gigantic white platter. Uncle Hubert bolted his chops down, ate one tomato slice, rose, bowed to the ladies, and excused himself from the table. As he left the room, he kissed Auntie Bella's cheek and murmured, "Very good dinner, Mother." Again Sophia burst into tears, and then, obviously emotionally upset from hunger, she bolted the remaining eight tomato slices and rushed out of the room. The next night the same dinner appeared, and the next, and the next. For three weeks the chops came to the table accompanied by the nine lonely tomato slices; for Sunday dinner there were twelve tomato slices.
As the flow of wonderful samples and mouthwatering tidbits stopped, so did the long kitchen visits from the mailman, the delivery boys, and the neighborhood children, who all sagged from wistful hope to mournful resignation as the weeks went by. Auntie Bella and Sophia grew as thin and sallow and nervous as the now-lean cats. Uncle Hubert remained as hearty as ever, and if he ever tired of lamb chops and tomato slices, he never said a word.
But as the fourth week began, Auntie Bella's watchful eye detected a look of desperation on Hubert's face as she brought in the eternal platter of chops. Quickly, that afternoon, she went to the kitchen and locked the door. Then she took one of the forbidden garlic cloves from under the sink, their home of exile, carefully peeled it, and sliced off a tiny quarter, which she dropped into a cup of water. She let the garlic sliver sit in the water for a scant five minutes. Then she removed the pearly little fragment and tossed it to the cats. It was snatched up by Measles, who crunched it with pleasure and fell into a purring fit.
That evening Auntie Bella broiled six mushroom caps to arrange on the platter beside the tomato slices. In the privacy of her kitchen she brushed the caps with the garlic water several times, then dotted them with butter, and put them to broil. The chops received a drop or two of the garlic water, but the tomatoes were left unseasoned.
Uncle Hubert came into the dining room, somewhat reluctantly, but when he saw the mushroom caps a broad smile shone from his face, and he rubbed his hands in anticipation. "Well, well! A special treat, eh, Mother?" he boomed, genuinely pleased.
Uncle Hubert ate all six of the mushroom caps, remarking loudly on their extreme tastiness, succulence, and remarkable flavor. He finished his chops in jig time and cast his glance around the table as though looking for more. When his eyes fell on the tomato slices, however, he rose from his chair and excused himself.
That night Auntie Bella received two kisses from her son-in-law. She smiled grimly. The plan was working. For three nights the mushroom cap tactic was repeated. Then, on Saturday at noon, she soaked half a clove of garlic in melted butter for 20 seconds. Next she injected the faintly garlicky butter into four plump baked potatoes, which accompanied the mushroom caps and the tomatoes. The chops were skillfully treated in a like manner.
Uncle Hubert fairly fell upon the baked potatoes. He became expansive after the third one had disappeared and his vest was bulging comfortably. "Those were the finest potatoes I have ever tasted, I want you to know. There was something to the flavor …" Words failed him. "Something familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Mother, you're turning into a wonderful cook!" Having delivered this high accolade, Uncle Hubert speared the last potato and fell to.
Daily Auntie Bella increased the garlic dose, slipping it slyly into a green salad, smuggling a tiny pinch into a creamy tomato soup, swinging a clove of garlic on a string through a simmering sauce, and Uncle Hubert's appetite increased with the garlic dosage. He began to come to the dining room half an hour before dinner, and he would twiddle with his water glass and wonder impatiently when the food would be ready. His vests began to strain tightly across his stomach, and he occasionally told amusing stories to his mother-in-law and wife.
Auntie Bella worked with infinite caution. Never once in six months was the garlic flavor so strong that anyone possessing even the most delicate palate could announce triumphantly, "You've put garlic into this!" Just the subtlest hint, the faintest fragrance, the merest whiff, the tiniest sliver came from the kitchen. The plump garlic bulbs themselves still remained hidden under the sink, and Auntie Bella's garlic patch flourished unnoticed in the flower garden behind a thick forest of purposely neglected rambler roses. She gathered her harvests in the moonlight under the pretense of "taking a little walk."
After nearly a year of painstaking care, Auntie Bella's cooking was nearly up to the old pre-Hubert garlic standards, and the garlic bulbs themselves came out from under the sink and hung once again from the beams, sending a faint but constant reminder of their existence throughout the kitchen.
Uncle Hubert, who was not stupid and who had learned to love his meals and his mother-in-law's robust cooking, noticed them swinging gently from the beams one winter evening and remarked, "Mother, those garlic bulbs give a very quaint, old-fashioned touch to the kitchen, but watch out they don't come in contact with any of my dinner!" And he laughed uproariously and winked.
Finally Auntie Bella was quite happy because she knew the garlic had made a stubborn, bad-tempered man into a genial, good-natured one. And then, too, Sophia had given birth to twin boys almost exactly a year after the marriage—something Auntie Bella attributed solely to the garlic clusters dangling in the bedsprings. And Uncle Hubert's practice grew fat, as did he. He was constantly immersed in a mild effluvium of garlic vapors. His examinations and advice to his patients left them gasping a bit, but lonely for that little extra something they couldn't quite identify as they sat over their flavorless chops that evening.