The Best Garlic in the World: Reflections from Namhae Island

“What makes Namhae garlic the most delicious.”

Apart from being confused as to why our tour guide was using this question as a declarative statement, I had no idea.

“It's the sea! That's why it's so expensive.”

I took another bite of the raw clove and gazed out over the last terraced rice paddy where the land drops away to rocky shoreline. Knowing next to nothing about agriculture, I took him at his word. Even so, there's no arguing with taste. The robust flavor pleasantly seared the insides of my face and set fire to my digestive tract. It was the best garlic I'd ever had.

But it was more than the seawater and ocean breeze that gave this specimen its potency. I could appreciate (if not taste) the care and energy involved in the production of the clove. My enjoyment of the taste of this garlic was earned. It was fairly won in a contest of strength and agility, proving to everyone gathered that I could race around a stick in the ground with a traditional backpack full of garlic faster than a sixty-year old ajushi (if only just).

Maybe it was the backbreaking labor in the paddy fields. There I was, hunched over and barefoot in a mud paddy, erratically planting a handful of sprouts with other inexpert foreigners before the event degenerated into a drum banging, mud flinging hoopla.

Perhaps it was the loving, rustic manner of preparing the fields, fertilizing each paddy with an ox-drawn plough. Or just sinking my toes in the wonderful mud and walking the beast of burden half the length of the field. Whatever it was, I was struck by an extraordinary sense of accomplishment that day. I'd helped to produce something. Having even a small hand in the food I was eating gave it flavor immeasurable.

Perhaps this festival is no more than a tourist attraction, something for the locals to laugh at as foreigners and TV personalities fell face forward in freshly fertilized mud. But the hardiness, the youth and the genuine happiness of the island farmers leaves me wondering: What secret life ingredient do they have that the rest of us have forgotten? How are men and women the age of my grandmother hauling bags of fish and onions up steep cliffs? Could that ingredient be as simple as breeze and seawater?

Nick Williams

Nick is new to Korea. He's inspired by the writings of Emerson, wants to experience zero gravity and hopes to find the truth that is "out there". He loves Korean bath houses and side dishes, and enjoys playing music while doing yoga and reading sci-fi. His lucky numbers are 18, 31, 5 and 11. Read more about our staff writers.