A day without garlic is much like being trapped in an elevator, having to listen to Classics-go-Pop played on an organ.

One of my icons, Marilyn Monroe was to have replied, when asked by a hack what she wore in bed, “Channel No 5”.

Along the same lines I believe every woman should have, in her closet, a fabulous black frock, a string of pearls, kick-ass red lipstick and, if she’s a goddess with culinary inclinations, always, always garlic in the kitchen.

You see, the words garlic and passion are not mutually exclusive. To my mind, the ‘less is more’ axiom has never had as underwhelming an application as here.

According to Kathleen Zimmerman on the history of garlic, information found on an Egyptian papyrus from 1,500 BC declared that garlic increased the stamina of the slaves building the pyramids. So you see – there were no clever aliens at the pyramids cutting stone with their ray guns. It’s the fabulous garlic that did it.

Zimmerman says the Egyptians also cured leprosy and asthma with garlic and in fact, in ancient Greece Mr Hippocratis, the father of modern medicine also used garlic for treating medical conditions.

It seems it’s that clever sulfur-bearing little bugger, allicin, that is responsible for all this feel-good stuff, and health hacks have claimed for ages that garlic cures everything from ingrown toenails to introversion (although some might argue that if you are a garlic disciple, keeping to yourself is a good thing).

Garlic has a wonderful three-pronged USP (marketing-speak that means unique selling point) - health (it is said to also deal bad cholesterol a blow, prevent liver problems (a plus for me) and aid digestion), the libidinous one (there are a number of claims out there that eating garlic enhances feelings of sexiness), and culinary.

My friend Isabeau Schoombee in the Eastern Cape lived abroad for many years and says she was delighted when she returned to find supermarket shelves packed with tubs, large and small, of garlic. Crushed was she to find that those delicious-looking goodies were, in fact turnips, with a good dose of garlic essence. Check, next time, when your order garlic butter. Not only the ‘butter’, but also the garlic might beg scrutiny.

But back to things tasteful. When I was a sprog I remember watching my mother rub a garlic clove around the inside of her wooden salad bowl with great aplomb before dropping in her home-grown salad leaves which were lovingly covered with the best olive oil she could find. Sundays would find an array of interesting friends around the luncheon table, eating and drinking for hours, thrilled at my mother’s culinary thumb at the nose of the blander fashions of the day.

One of my most heady foodie-travel experiences was visiting the market in the old quarter of Nice in France. During the morning, the market would bustle with locals tasting, prodding and discussing fresh produce that looked much like an ingénue in her first flush of passion.

I’ve had an infatuation with bouillabaisse for as long as I can remember – and I’m lucky to have Bistro 277 on Main (Ile de France before the facelift) in my neighborhood. If you can’t make it to France, this is a must-do alternative.

The French ‘fish soup’ started in markets very much like the one in Nice, to make good use of the left-over unsold fish. What is essentially garlic mayonnaise - with more attitude than any member of the French nation has ever had - the Aioli is then delivered to the table with bits of toasted French bread. Imagine sitting at one of those sidewalk eateries devouring a dish, the ingredients of which had just been bought at the market behind you, slugging French wine and watching a couple of lovers at the other table spoon the stuff into each other’s mouths.

To practicalities for a moment, a cup of aioli requires garlic, Dijon mustard, salt, egg and olive oil and lemon juice to taste. All of this goes into a blender and is to me the essence of life. A day without garlic is much like being trapped in an elevator, having to listen to Classics-go-Pop being played on an organ.

Another of my female icons, cookery writer Elizabeth David lived with a French family while studying at the Sorbonne. Once back in England she decided to start cooking and went on to become one of the most influential writers on the subjects of food and cooking. She also wrote about a further personal fave, the garlic soup (the secret is in the pinch of saffron).

Yet another of my favourite garlic recipes (apart from pesto, which wouldn’t be pesto without garlic, never mind that upstart, basil) is Gremolata, which is great when you’re preparing a rich dish like Osso Bucco or lamb shank. It cuts through the richness and also adds fabulous colour when perched on top of the dish when you flourish it to the table. Add together finely chopped Italian flat-leafed parsley, minced garlic, grated lemon zest and freshly ground black pepper and voila, a miracle is born.

May I suggest if recreational drugs don’t do it for you, abandon yourself to the joys of garlic. In addition to its other benefits, I find that eating lots of garlic leaves me with a feeling of fabulous euphoria.

In conclusion, no writing on garlic is complete without that sexy vampire, Nosferatu. The aforementioned Ms Zimmerman says that historically the smell of garlic was said to ward off vampires, sorcerers (I can’t imagine why one would want to) and werewolves.

Around the time of Sunday luncheons at my mother’s, there was a song that went something like, ‘I love onions, hah, hah, hah’, sung by a woman with a breathy voice. I always thought the pleasures of garlic would have sent her to the top of the charts. My other favourite song was Marilyn Monroe’s ‘My heart belongs to Daddy’. Here, too, I must disagree. My heart – and many other parts of my anatomy – belongs to the most irresistible bulb of all, garlic.