RE: O/T: Garlic

Me I just smash the cloves with the side of the knife.

I use this......

Put a clove in, roll it with a bit of pressure, the clove comes out skin free. I never have a problem

There is a garlic press, put the whole, peel and all, in the press and squeeze the handles. You get finely extruded garlic meat less the peel.

Many varities

Crush before peeling with the flat of a cleaver of butcher knife and the skin falls right off.

but you can buy a piece of pink tubing for half the price. ;>)

I've got one of those - a gift I think - but I was not aware you could put un-peeled cloves in it. I'll have to try it. When I cook, the amount of garlic I use is generally controlled by how many cloves I can prepare before I get tired. :)

Here's another one ..

John T.

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Why buy? One of the give away items I've accumulated is a thin rubber jar opener that does the same thing. Wrap and roll

Smashing with the side of a knife works well too. You just pull out the peel.

On page 123 of his Les Halles Cookbook, Anthony Bourdain says "If you use a garlic press, you shall surely burn in hell."

I've tried them. Too much waste and clean-up for me. I usually have the knife and cutting board out already, so I just smash and chop. Even if I nothing else to chop, there's no waste and clean-up is pretty simple.

A quick google search indicates that most professional chefs don't use a garlic press.

This guy did a little experiment using a press vs. mincing by hand. Interesting results. Obviously it's an extremely small sample size (1 clove!) so the inconclusive results don't carry much weight for either side of the argument.

Peeled or unpeeled, whole or minced to repel vampires?

I don't think it matters.

Most of the garlic/vampire related literature does not designate the prepar ation method, simply stating that the ingestion of enough garlic by the cre ature, whether raw or included in a prepared dish, will cause a severe alle rgic reaction and kill the vampire. If you don't use enough, you may get lu cky and render the creature weak enough to use some other method of renderi ng the undead, well, dead. Options include the proverbial wooden stake or d ecapitation or the use of pure silver. Decapitation and then the stuffing o f a few garlic gloves into the mouth of the severed head has proven to be f airly effective.

Short of actually killing the vampire, if a person eats enough garlic their own blood can become unpalatable to a vampire. Other than those pesky hole s in their neck, they may actually walk away relatively unscathed.

Here are a couple of oft used tests to see if someone is a vampire:

2 - Cook with lots of garlic and offer the food to the suspected individual . If they shy away (or run away) it's a sure bet they have moroii-ish leani ngs.

Does it mince the meat?

Absolutely, put the whole thing in and press. It is a 3 second operation from dropping it in, to it being in the container and minced.

Too much waste and cleanup..... Well I guess if you are extremely proficient and don't have to think about what you are doing to accomplish this task, perhaps so. I watch my wife use hers and it goes very fast and faster than I would know how to use it.

Which reminds me about the Aggie that returned his chain saw to the dealer complaining that it only cut down 10 trees a day. The dealer pulled the cord on the saw to start it and the customer was shocked that it had a motor. ;!)

I heard it as the customer saying "what's that noise?"

Yeah, that's right but I was just making a point that if you use the press the way my wife does clean up is not an issue. ;~)

Many years ago my boss described how our porter used a weed eater around the dealership. The motion he used was similar to swinging an ax. ;~)

Don't know about unpalatable but it can become unpleasant for just about anybody.

Three decades or so ago my wife and I went on a tour in China. We were all carted about whatever city we happened to be in via nice, air conditioned busses; however, while we were off looking at another damn bell tower, the driver always turned off the air. Upon our return, the busses always reeked of garlic, presumably exhuded through the driver's pores.

The Chinese use lots of garlic.

Given the choice of offending a busload of tourists vs. becoming destined to an eternal life of sucking blood after dark, I'd offend those tourists in a NY second.

I'll bet that if you went back to China and found that bus driver, you'd find no holes in his neck nor fangs in his mouth.

Proof positive that the garlic worked.

Those appear to be throwaway sheets. If so, I'd rather have a tool that can be washed after use.