Italian Food and Garlic

There is this notion out there that Italian food is loaded with garlic. Now, I am not going to talk about Southern Italian food, because that is really something different, rather I will be talking about True Italian food, made by True Italians (Tuscans, Umbrians, Piemontese. Oh, I suppose Bolognese as well).

We cook with a lot of garlic, but we don't eat a lot of garlic. I was taught to generally use whole cloves of garlic, peeled, perhaps lightly cracked, but kept in large enough chunks for easy extraction. The garlic delicately perfumes a dish, but does not cause massive digestive havoc.

In the old days, Italian immigrants were called "garlic snappers" because of the jealousy felt by the Anglirish islanders who ate food that was half a step above chewing the cud. Then, after a few decades of slopping at the trough of mass production, the Anglirish suddenly got a taste for the "real authentic" Italian taste of lots of garlic.

Along come garlic fries. An abomination.

Fortunately most garlic fries are nearly inedible, for instance the Gordon Biersch ones that they serve at PacBell Park. They smell bad, they look bad, they taste worse. The garlic is oxidized, raw, and eye-stingingly potent. The fries are coated with grease that tastes slightly industrial. Blech. People love 'em, though, so it is hard to escape the stench.

Now, some fiends make garlic fries the right way: they use fresh garlic, cook it just through, and mix it with parmiggiano. Then they put that on properly cooked fries, and the result is heavenly. In fact, the stuff is so good, that as you linger over them, and the fries are gone, you end up eating the garlicky, cheesy good bits that remain in the basket.

And you pay.

You remind yourself: no, don't eat garlic, flavor things with garlic.

There are "health food" addicts (I use scare quotes, because have you ever seen a "health food" nut who looked remotely healthy?) who claim all sorts of health benefits to garlic. But they don't like to have the stuff oozing from their pores, their breath reeking, their digestion merrily cavorting in spasms of good health. So they take de-odorized garlic pills.

If there are health benefits to garlic, then I am convinced that they must go along with the rather drastic effects of the bulb. If it does anything, it does it as it burns your nasal passages, as it oozes from your pores, as it makes your stomach flip for joy.

Also, what are these health nuts doing taking a product in a refined state? Isn't that of more concern thatn any ailment the garlic is supposed to cure?

I don't understand these people, and, frankly, I no longer care to.

On an unrelated note: is there anything that Wolfowitz is not incompetent at? Good Lord! How has this man ever been employed at anything with more responsibility than street sweeper? I don't get it.

Posted by erik at May 15, 2007 9:36 AM