Comment on Cooking đ
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca â¨4⊠â¨weeks⊠agoIâm not exactly a gourmet cook, Iâve just been learning how to cook for years. One Italian friend of mine recommended that I should always try to get fresh garlic as much as I can because it is better. Canned, preserved, precut, minced, bottled garlic ⌠or even dried, dehydrated garlic is not the best ⌠not only does it not have as much of a strong garlic flavour, most of it comes from Asia and specifically China where it is produced cheaply and under very shady circumstances.
Watch a Netflix documentary series called âRottenâ ⌠Season 1 Episode 3 is titled âGarlic Breathâ ⌠and it details where a lot of cheap prepackaged garlic products come from ⌠namely cheap Chinese prison labour where in some factories, prisoners are not allowed any sharp objects to peel the garlic by hand so they have to resort to using their fingernails, which they eventually wear out and then later resort to using their teeth.
After watching all that ⌠I really took my time to search for a local farmer and pay double the amount for fresh garlic and I just buy the stuff in bulk now because itâs cheaper in the long run.
I didnât know the half of that, and I was mildly happier for it :(
Usually Chinese garlic is also a different plant than European garlic. You can notice it by the fact that the roots of the garlic fall off in a neat chunk for Chinese garlic but stay attached for European garlic.
I donât tend to check individually every time I buy just to make sure, but from what I read and on occasions where source was actually identified so that I could check, almost all the garlic sold here in Australia is from China.
I have not really observed this phenomenon with the roots that youâre describing. Also, itâs kind of hard for me to say what particular characteristics Chinese garlic has because assuming that the garlic Iâm buying really is coming from China, then it seems they grow several varieties that all gets sold as just âgarlicâ because in any given trip to the same supermarket you get noticeably different attributes to the size and appearance and physical characteristics of the garlic sold.
I donât really notice much difference in cooking with them or eating them though. Occasionally you get some much stronger flavoured ones, but itâs just the same taste but stronger rather than detectably different and often this doesnât really seem to couple with which type they happened to sell this week. Any attributes of the garlicâs appearance that seem distinct to whatâs available this week, donât seem to reliably signal what it will taste like the next time you see those same attributes again the next time theyâre on sale.
I had no idea, thanks for the docu recommendation. Thankfully Iâll nearly always use fresh unless a recipe requires dry & it feels needed, like dry rubs. I will certainly be checking where any non fresh garlic comes from in the future. Happy cooking!!
Yeah ⌠it took me a while to get my garlic setup ⌠at first I bought grocery store commercial garlic but then noticed that much of the time, itâs really cheap Chinese garlic. Iâm not totally against Chinese products ⌠the thing that gets me is that I really have to wonder how I can buy such cheap produce when it has to be shipped to me half way round the world in Canada! Not to mention that this cheap Chinese garlic is usually not that potent or tasty.
At first a few gardener friends gave me samples of their home grown garlic and man ⌠when you grow your own garlic and tend to the soil and keep it well tended all year, it produces really potent, tasty and strong garlic. I can chew Chinese garlic and get a good taste of garlic and not be bothered by it much ⌠I did the same to a friend of mineâs home grown garlic years ago and nearly choked on a piece because it was like fire in my mouth.
If you ever get the chance in the mid summer, find a local grow op or farmers market when they get their first crop of garlic. It will be a bit expensive but the garlic that time of year is like gold and it will be worth it. They even sell the long green stems of the garlic called SCAPES and you use them in cooking like green onion. And the home grown garlic is potent. You can literally just just one clove at a time per recipe, compared to trying to use an entire head to get that garlic taste.
Happy cooking to you as well!
Where I currently live we get a lot of wild garlic growing everywhere for a month or so a year, the smell is in the air nearly anywhere you walk for a few weeks. I do see some people picking it by the sack full, wonder if thatâs similar to what youâre suggesting about the early farm crops. Although I presume the wild stuff is much milder than farm grown. Iâll try to source some from a farm next spring as soon as I see the local wild ones coming out. Cheers!
PodPerson@lemmy.zip â¨4⊠â¨weeks⊠ago
Plus, for bottled garlic, the preservatives added to it (citric acid I think) make the bits never really soften when you cook them. Itâs always easy to tell when you go out to eat somewhere and order something with garlic all over it if they used garlic from a jar, since the garlic always looks like gravel or uncooked cous cous.