My! How you've changed!

You’re looking at a photo that has not been altered. Nope. Not in the teensiest-tiniest, ittiest-bittiest way.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is a clove of very, very green garlic. Don’t look at me. I didn’t do it.  When I first started shooting the garlic, it was blue.  Dawn Dishwashing Liquid blue. 

It mellowed.

I was making a batch of Pickled Jalapeno Peppers, with the hopes of entering them in the State Fair of Texas.  I popped a clove of garlic into each canning jar.  After processing, the garlic was bright blue.

What, pray say, caused this?  I love a good mystery and this is one. I decided to research. 

According to late-night googling, garlic, like all alliums, contains high amounts of sulfur. Sulfur can react with itsy-bitsy traces of copper -- the tiny amounts found in tap water -- to turn blue-green.  I wonder if that’s the same reaction copper has when in contact with air or acid?

Anyhoo – It doesn’t affect the taste or safety of food. It just looks weird.  Maybe that’s why the pickles returned from the State Fair ribbonless.

They taste fantastic, though.  Time to rethink the recipe.