World's Longest Garlic Braid

As the self-described, "Garlic Capital of the World," Gilroy, California produces around 100 million pounds of the pungent bulbs each year. There’s an annual garlic festival, and garlic-centric rides and attractions at an agricultural theme park, called Gilroy Gardens. To honor the town's beloved bulb, Don Christopher and Carolyn Tognetti transformed a large, rustic fruit stand into Garlic World in 1986. Today, this grocer sells its namesake allium in just about every form imaginable, including garlic chocolate chip cookies and garlic ice cream. 

Past these delicacies lies a second room filled with garlic braids and garlic preserves. While these items are sold all over Gilroy, the reason to visit Garlic World is hanging on the wall: the world’s longest garlic braid—or, at least, the longest example still in existence. A small sheet of orange paper proclaims that the braid is 216 feet long. 

According to The Guinness Book of World Records, for years, the title of Longest Garlic Braid belonged to a braid created for a garlic festival in Mako, Hungary, in 2006. The Hungarian version measured 255 meters (837 feet). Dimitra Athanasova Tzoridou shattered that record at a 2018 trade fair in Alexandroupolis, Greece, when she knitted together a braid over 612 meters (2,008 feet) in length from more than 20,000 heads of garlic. 

Because both of those garlic braids were since dismantled (or, perhaps, have perished), Gilroy’s now proudly wears the mantle. A banner announcing the "World's Longest Garlic Braid" is emblazoned along the back wall, surrounded by a criss-crossing of garlic bulbs strung together and posters of Gilroy Garlic Festivals past.