What did Terry Pratchett mean by "avec"?

Terry Pratchett used in his disc world novels the word "avec" as a common food ingredient for french (in his books named "quirmian" or "Quirm" for the country) food.

Excerpt from "Snuff" by Terry Pratchett:

Say what you like, the food in the Quirm Watch House canteen was pretty damn good, even if they did use a shade too much avec, thought Vimes; avec on everything.

I suspect that it means "garlic", deriving from an ellipsis on the french wording "avec ail" - "with garlic".

Is this correct? Thanks in advance & GNU Terry Pratchett :-)

Edit: Of course I'm aware that "avec" is the french word for "with", but that knowledge alone didn't help me here ;-)

Solution 1:

Terry Pratchett often used wordplay.

The word "avec" is mistaken by an English-speaker to be an ingredient. The failure of the Anglophone to realise that avec is not an ingredient, but just means "with", is the joke here.

Other times, for example when Vimes asks for a bacon sandwich without any avec, he means he just wants a bacon sandwich, no mayonnaise, lettuce or other complications. In this case without any avec, (without any with), is at the same time a humorous turn of phrase, a possible failure to understand that avec is not an ingredient, and as Dan Bron says, a typically British dismissal of the fussiness of French food, even in a canteen.