When I was a child I did not know that garlic chives of 韭菜; pinyin: jiǔcài, also known as Chinese chives, Chinese leek, ku chai, jiu cai bore flowers.
The flowers are beautiful and can easily bloom when the soils are fertile . It can grow from seeds too.
As children we ate a lot of this vegetable as it was then a very cheap commodity and whole families could enjoy the dish for just a few cents. Garlic chives go well with eggs. At times they are even cooked as soups with eggs. Once in a while aunties make dumplings or jiaozi with fillings made from chives combined with eggs, shrimps and pork. It was a so good to eat jiaozi with loved ones.
The Foochows have a traditional oyster cake which is made very tantalizing by the addition of chopped garlic chives.
Today foodies can google to find recipes and the popularity of garlic chives have become global. Good cooks make jiucai bing or chives pancakes, and it can be added to a variety of noodle dishes. One can even make kimchi chives.
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