Comment on Cooking š
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca āØ7ā© āØhoursā© agoIām not exactly a gourmet cook, Iāve 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 ā¦ or even dried, dehydrated garlic is not the best ā¦ 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 āRottenā ā¦ Season 1 Episode 3 is titled āGarlic Breathā ā¦ and it details where a lot of cheap prepackaged garlic products come from ā¦ 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 ā¦ 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 itās cheaper in the long run.
Eq0@literature.cafe āØ2ā© āØhoursā© ago
I didnāt 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.
Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml āØ1ā© āØhourā© ago
I donāt 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 youāre describing. Also, itās kind of hard for me to say what particular characteristics Chinese garlic has because assuming that the garlic Iām buying really is coming from China, then it seems they grow several varieties that all gets sold as just āgarlicā 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 donāt really notice much difference in cooking with them or eating them though. Occasionally you get some much stronger flavoured ones, but itās just the same taste but stronger rather than detectably different and often this doesnāt really seem to couple with which type they happened to sell this week. Any attributes of the garlicās appearance that seem distinct to whatās available this week, donāt seem to reliably signal what it will taste like the next time you see those same attributes again the next time theyāre on sale.