• ”What garlic is to food, insanity is to art,” so said Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Egyptians ate bread and garlic as a major part of their diets, and King Tut even had some in his tomb (probably not to ward off vampires). It may even be the origin of the word “Chicago” (from a stinky wild garlic/wild leek, chicagoua). While you may not be a physiggoomai yet (an Ancient Greek word that means excited by eating garlic), but you may be well on your way after discovering its many benefits.
• Most people might think of garlic has being “aromatic,” to put it kindly, but it can actually be helpful in attacking organisms in the gut that produce methane. That’s right, scientists in Wales tackling the impact flatulent cows and sheep have on global warming may have an answer – putting garlic in their food. Mootral, a garlic supplement, was even shortlisted by the Financial Times in 2009 for innovative solutions to climate change.
• Of course, garlic is not only beneficial to animals – it has been known to aid in the prevention of certain cancers, help lower cholesterol and blood pressure, combat a cold, although it does not (sadly) ward off mosquitoes.
• As to whether garlic wards off Vampires or not, we cannot know. However, those less glamourous bloodsuckers (leeches) have been found to be attracted to garlic.
• From the quasi-scientific to the downright wacky, a vampire community in South Florida (of course; and obviously they don’t mind sun) does eat garlic.
• Unable to get to the Gilroy Garlic Festival? Don’t sit around watching paint dry when you could be watching garlic grow!
• Some restaurants specialize in garlic, such as California’s The Stinking Rose, or the Stockholm joint that serves what is (apparently) surprisingly delicious garlic ice cream.
• Not everyone loves garlic, of course – there’s an active campaign to ban garlic from restaurants in Italy. Silvio Berlusconi, Italian media tycoon and Prime Minister, said that he was compiling a food guide recommending only restaurants that banned garlic. Carlo Rossella, a prominent television executive, announced a campaign to persuade Italian restaurants not to use “stinking garlic” in their dishes.
• I take garlic vitamins every day! It’s pretty much a wonder-supplment, in my esteem. I’ve never been able to cook the cloves properly, although I do use garlic powder (along with onion powder) on everything I roast in the oven, including salmon. Delicious! What are some of your favorite (or least-favorite) ways to consume this miracle herb, Flossers? Any bad garlic-breath stories to share?
Hungry for more? Venture into the Dietribes archive.
‘Dietribes’ appears every other Wednesday. Food photos taken by Johanna Beyenbach. You might remember that name from our post about her colorful diet.
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There is a lovely garlic-esque plant that is about twice as pungent known as a Ramp. Probably the same plant that Chigago is supposedly named after. I am from the “Ramp Capital of the World” (Richwood, WV) where they hold an annual festival in honor of this stinky stalk and you can smell the town from miles away. The smell is enough to make your eyes water, but if you’re a garlic fan Ramps will make your mouth water too.
posted by Chris on 3-10-2010 at 12:27 pm
GARLIC SALT! Love it!
Mix it with melted buter for a quick garlic bread spread, use it in our family’s original salad dressing, and sprinkle it on top of almost every meat we cook!
posted by Katie Rose on 3-10-2010 at 12:28 pm
Thanks for this article! I’m a huge fan of garlic. One of my favorite things is Paula Deen’s house mix. It’s just 4 parts salt to 1 part pepper and 1 part garlic powder. Put it in an old shaker and you’re good to go.
I used it for everything from seasoning foods while cooking to putting it on veggies instead of butter.
posted by Jason on 3-10-2010 at 12:30 pm
A large group of friends and I were having dinner at my house and someone brought LOADS a super delicious garlic bread. Afterwards, without thinking, we went to see some new blockbuster movie on its opening night… there was a circle of open seats all around us dsespite the theater being sold out. Wasn’t until afterwards that I pointed out that we all had some rank garlic breath going on.
posted by Marie on 3-10-2010 at 12:45 pm
Garlic, basil, and mushrooms end up in almost every dish I cook these days . . .
posted by nutmeag on 3-10-2010 at 12:47 pm
I love roasted garlic spread on toasted french bread slices.
The slow roasting gives it a sweeter taste for a wonderful garlic bread variation. http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/roasted_garlic/
posted by Snark on 3-10-2010 at 12:47 pm
An easy way of cooking garlic is to put them in the pan whole. It doesn’t burn as easily and isn’t as hot.
If heat is your game: mince, smash or mutilate and let stand and it will get hotter. Then add fresh instead of cooking.
posted by anomdebus on 3-10-2010 at 1:05 pm
My wife and I love this recipe.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/40-cloves-and-a-chicken-recipe/index.html
40 cloves and a chicken. Right 40 cloves of garlic, and after the chicken is done you take some nice bruschetta and one of the roasted garlic cloves and smear it all over the toast like butter. Then you look over at your loving wife who prepared the dish and give a big garlicky kiss.
posted by Brian on 3-10-2010 at 1:08 pm
I was following an uncle’s salsa recipe when I had my first experience using ‘real’ garlic in the kitchen. It called for two minced cloves. It’s on that day that I learned the difference between a ‘clove’ and a ‘head’.
posted by EV on 3-10-2010 at 1:16 pm
Garlic is one of my main food groups. Seriously. It goes on pretty much everything I cook, except of course sweets. If it’s meat, it gets salt (kosher), pepper, and garlic. Jalapenos are number 2 on my list. :D
posted by tinkerschnitzel on 3-10-2010 at 1:18 pm
Rapazini Winery in Gilroy, CA (the garlic capitol of. . . California? America? The world?) sells garlic wine. It tastes like, well, a liquid version of garlic, but I imagine it would be a delight to cook with. (They also have a wonderful apricot wine that more than atones for the unpleasantness of the garlic wine.)
My husband and I have a pact that if one of us eats garlic, the other has to as well even if it’s only just a bite. That way neither is offended by the aroma.
posted by Andrea on 3-10-2010 at 1:43 pm
i’m TOTALLY a physiggoomai
posted by Nicole on 3-10-2010 at 1:48 pm
I’ve been using garlic to ward off illness for almost 10 years. My husband has caught on, too. Garlic will kill any cold or cough within a few days. Most often, I take it when allergies hit. I used to get sinus infections every time my allergies flared up – no longer thanks to garlic!
Just take a few raw cloves (3-5) and slice them up as small as you want. Swallow with water or juice as if a pill or vitamin, just don’t chew!!! Repeat twice a day for a few days. Your sweat (breath, farts, etc) will reek – but you will be well in no time!
posted by Renis on 3-10-2010 at 1:48 pm
My culinary garlic creedo:
Too much garlic is almost enough.
posted by n2y2 on 3-10-2010 at 1:54 pm
” As to whether garlic wards off Vampires or not, we cannot know. However, those less glamourous bloodsuckers (leeches and Tila Tequila) have been found to be attracted to garlic.”
There. Fixed that for you.
Years ago a co-worker of my mother’s invited us to lunch with her at a trendy new restaurant close to their work. I ordered something pretty simple, a turkey sub. It had so much raw garlic on it I couldn’t eat more than a few bites before it gave me a burning sensation in my mouth. They took it back to the kitchen and offered me something else but my appetite was gone.
It took 3-4 days for the garlic taste to fade away even though I must have brushed my teeth a dozen times and went through a whole bottle of mouthwash. Major-league big-time YUUUUUCK!
posted by dooflotchie on 3-10-2010 at 2:02 pm
GARLIC!!!
posted by renee on 3-10-2010 at 2:02 pm
Contrary to popular belief; Italians are not generally huge fans of Garlic. In fact, only one of my Italian friends and/or family actually ‘like’ it enough to cook with it often.
posted by Kate on 3-10-2010 at 2:06 pm
Hmm, well, I’m half Italian and all of me loves garlic.
posted by Jenny on 3-10-2010 at 2:17 pm
Southwest lore has it, that smearing the ‘mash’ of garlic (that is the pressings) above the ankles will ward off rattlesnakes when venturing through their domain.
Dunno if its true or not…..
posted by Bobsen on 3-10-2010 at 2:36 pm
Garlic is very easy to grow, but watch our for the slugs – they like the above-ground stalk and leaves. Roasted garlic is wonderful as a butter substitute on savory sandwiches or tossed into soup stock.
posted by Keeker on 3-10-2010 at 3:04 pm
On somebody’s advice, I once got some “odorless” garlic pills to take every day to help me stay healthy in the winter.
The first morning I took a garlic pill, the people downstairs were (unbeknownst to me) using their dehydrator to make some very garlicky beef jerky.
I started smelling it shortly after I took the pill, and it quickly got very strong. I thought that the pill had done something horrible to me. I still laugh whenever I hear somebody talk about garlic supplements.
posted by Me on 3-10-2010 at 3:51 pm
Huge fan of garlic. When I make “Forty Garlic Chicken,” I usually use about sixty cloves.
A trick I’ve learned is that if I wind up with garlic breath and need to get rid of it, the oils in a spoonful of peanut butter will break down the enzymes in the garlic. Of course, it won’t do anything if the garlic is coming through your skin.
posted by Steven on 3-10-2010 at 3:52 pm
For years I’ve been thinking that I can sometimes taste garlic in milk. Maybe I’ve been picking up the residuals of that garlicy cow feed.
Not that I have anything against garlic though. I put garlic salt on almost every meat and vegetable I cook. And I’ve been known to put up to 10 cloves of garlic, crushed with a garlic press, on a loaf of sourdough garlic bread. Also, pickled garlic can be surprisingly tasty.
posted by Kathryn on 3-10-2010 at 4:05 pm
“there’s an active campaign to ban garlic from restaurants in Italy. ”
…scarier words have never been written.. the food in Italy is out-of-this-world amazing and I can’t imagine it being the same without the use of garlic!
posted by Laura on 3-10-2010 at 4:16 pm
My belief is that if a recipe calls for onion, it can benefit from garlic as well.
Favorite way to eat it is with Korean bulgogi- slivered raw garlic, meat, etc. in a lettuce wrap.
posted by Admiral Byrd on 3-10-2010 at 4:26 pm
Garlic FTW!!!!!!!
posted by jiminut on 3-10-2010 at 5:35 pm
Wow, beef that marinates itself as it grows….
posted by Calumny on 3-10-2010 at 7:04 pm
Call me a snob or whatever, but I almost never use powdered garlic or garlic salt — only the fresh stuff will do in my kitchen. I do have a little phial of garlic powder just in case of emergency. And I’ll never make the mistake of buying one of those jars of pre-minced garlic. Seemed like a great idea at the time, but it had that strange, sulfur-like flavor you get from the powdered stuff.
posted by Paul on 3-10-2010 at 7:29 pm
Pickled garlic is absolutely wonderful!Try it in a martini! If you HAVE to use powdered garlic, try a an organic one. Higher standards for processing. Much better flavor than the standard store stuff.
posted by ohyes on 3-10-2010 at 8:49 pm
Perhaps the rumor of Italians disliking garlic is regional? My grandparents came to the US from Naples, and Grandma Sue puts garlic in EVERYTHING!!! Its glorious, and I am so grateful for the cooking lessons she has given me (mainly the more garlic the better!) :)
posted by Nykkya on 3-10-2010 at 9:12 pm
Speaking of Gilroy and the Garlic Festival…ever try garlic ice cream?
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
posted by M. Forrest on 3-10-2010 at 10:42 pm
We have a resturant in London (Ontario, Canada) called “Garlics”. They are one of the best places in town and serve garlic ice cream. It is amazingly sweet but not a cloying syrupy sweetness. A must try if you ever have the chance.
posted by Lisa H on 3-10-2010 at 11:11 pm
I’ve been to the Gilroy Garlic Festival, and it’s very worth the trip! The entire TOWN smells of garlic, but in a wonderful way. My family and I always laugh about our trip there, because we had Korean neighbors who used to cook with so much garlic that the overpowering aroma would come through our air conditioner in the summer, and we’d be forced to turn it off or choke on the smell, so of course a few days in Gilroy sounded like a great idea!
PS–I swear, garlicky foods when sick do the trick! Especially with a sore throat!
posted by shirleyfeeney on 3-11-2010 at 2:05 am
Steven–I’ve made chicken with 20 cloves of garlic and my husband reeked for days. But the dinner was soooooo worth it!
posted by shirleyfeeney on 3-11-2010 at 2:07 am
I just want to echo the “I love garlic” sentiments. I’m so tempted to go roast the head I have right now, but I need it later for a recipe [Chinese honey chicken] and it would be a shame to have to use the powdered stuff ’cause I ate it all! Not that I have anything to put it on at the moment, but still.
I wish that the minced stuff from a jar had a better flavor, or the garlic powder – try as I might, I don’t like it as much. I end up using less garlic than I prefer on simple fact of not always having fresh garlic around. Sigh.
posted by Oliver on 3-11-2010 at 8:58 am
I heart garlic. I put garlic salt on almost everything, and whoever mentioned using it as part of the topping for cheesy bread is right on. I also like roasting it, which is surprisingly easy. You just cut off the top and the bottom of a clove and coat it thoroughly in olive oil, then wrap it in aluminum foil and put in the oven for about 45 minutes. When it’s done, you can just squeeze the garlic right out of the skin.
And then I just live with the bad breath :)
posted by Fruppi on 3-11-2010 at 2:50 pm
My mother makes this garlic-chicken dish that will knock your socks off. I don’t even like garlic that much but I like it in this!
posted by Heather on 3-24-2010 at 1:38 pm
I’m a big fan of garlic powder- even getting the quality organic stuff, it’s really cheap for how much you need to use. Essentially, you’re adding dried raw garlic to your dishes, so it’s pretty strong- and I’ve been adding it to EVERYTHING lately. It’s great on cooked veggies, things like brussel sprouts or pinto beans with ketchup.
posted by Araxie on 12-31-2010 at 5:29 am