He gave up pizza to make his own black garlic near Perpignan

Sunday 10th November 2024 12:48 PM

It’s been around ten years since black garlic arrived in France, seducing great chefs with its umami flavors and fans of plant-based health thanks to its therapeutic virtues. Among the first to produce it in the country, a former Catalan pizza maker who embarked on the adventure in 2019 from Villeneuve-de-la-Raho.

Matthieu Martinez set up his business, assisted by his mother Jocy Duval, who notably designs the cooking recipes and imagines the derived products.
Charles Baron – The Independent

A little charcoal-colored nugget but with brilliant reflections. Firm under the knife, but melting under the tongue. A concentrate of aromas which diffuse little by little. Indefinable. But let’s try anyway… a woody head flavor of mushroom, slightly liquorice, with a candied heart note of prune, between balsamic vinegar and soy, and in the trail, yes, we can guess, a distant garlic touch which we would have patiently faded away. full-bodied appearance. “We’re talking about umami taste“, defines Matthieu Martinez.

The young entrepreneur based in Villeneuve-de-la-Raho launched into the manufacturing and marketing of black garlic in 2019, after four years of research and trial and error to develop his know-how. Because it is more a transformation than a production in the agricultural sense. The former pizza maker, converted to black garlic, quickly gave up planting his own garlic: “I went to prospect with producers who explained to me that the Pyrénées-Orientales does not have the ideal soil” for this bulb, which is nevertheless very popular in the Catalan country.

Garlic cloves can be eaten as is, almost like candy.
Charles Baron – The Independent

A product surrounded by myths and legends

No matter, he who literally fell under the spell of this product during a tasting offered by a supplier when he was a pizza maker, has done everything possible to make it his art. Starting by delving into the history of this latest addition to Japanese culinary refinement. He would have appeared there at the very beginning of the 2000s. But Matthieu Martinez refuses to be satisfied with such an abrupt scenario. Fueled all the same by numerous theories, flirting with myth. Black garlic was born from a storage accident, in a cellar flooded by the sea. Matthieu, for his part, more readily imagines a form of secret tradition inherited from Antiquity. The fact remains that he himself had to find the miracle recipe to transmute pure white garlic into precious black mother-of-pearl.

As it matures, the heads of garlic take on a brown color, while the cloves oxidize.
Charles Baron – The Independent

Three weeks of cooking at low temperature

The Catalan went to knock on the doors of the best producers, classified as Protected Geographical Indication and Protected Designation of Origin, exclusively organic. Its raw material is therefore stamped “white garlic from Lomagne” and “purple garlic from Cadours”, raised respectively in Tarn-et-Garonne and Gers.

The heads of garlic, once removed from the maturer, are dried for two months, and can then be kept for years, during which they continue to mature and develop new aromas, like wine!
Charles Baron – The Independent

Every year, in June and July, he sources freshly harvested garlic to preserve the freshness of the immaculate flesh. And immediately, he lines up the heads, up to 100 kg at a time, in his “ripener”, a sort of cabinet-shaped oven from China, where they will be heated at low temperature for around three weeks non-stop. “The temperature is controlled by computer, and varies between 60 and 80°“, he says. In their leafy envelope, the browned chaplains are then delicately aligned on shelves, under a mosquito net to prevent insects from nesting there. They will ripen there for at least two more months before being able to be After which, Matthieu assures, they keep as long as you want, maturing over time like a good wine…

It remains to be seen whether one day another Catalan will invent black aioli.

In cream, in syrup, in flavored vinegar, in brandy… endless variations and recipes by Jocy

Jocy Duval is the mother of Matthieu Martinez, by his side at each stage of the evolution of the company V2V which markets black garlic born in Villeneuve-de-la-Raho – now matured in the established production site in Bages – she is full of ideas, even developing a black garlic slurry. “I come from the medical worldexplains Jocy, and that’s why I became passionate about this product rich in amino acids, which we need daily“. Some customers, she continues, do not hesitate to take it as a treatment of one clove daily for 1 to three months in order to boost their immune system. The very particular oxidation of garlic gives the peelings, assures her, a specificity: “Unlike white garlic, whose peels are bactericidal, and must therefore be reduced to ashes, those of black garlic can return to the earth. Everything is good about this product!“Jocy therefore extracted a manure, which she sells as a phytosanitary product and fertilizer.

As for the oxidation of the pods themselves, it inspires recipes that she practices developing in a festival of creations. She has written a booklet that makes your mouth water: brouillade, tartare, hot oysters with black garlic butter, monkfish tail, prawns with black garlic compote, chicken paupiette, sea urchin cream, Fusilli with black garlic pesto etc.

V2V produces around 500 kg of black garlic per year. They can be found at the price of 6 euros per head, along with the entire range of derived products, on the markets of Céret on Saturday mornings, Port-Argelès on Sunday mornings, and Collioure on Wednesdays.