The New Complete Book of Food

 The New Complete Book of Food

Diets That May Restrict or Exclude This Food

Antiflatulence diet

Bland diet

Buying This Food

Look for: Firm, solid cloves with tight clinging skin. If the skin is papery and pulling

away from the cloves and the head feels light for its size, the garlic has withered or rotted

away inside.

The Most Nutritious Way to Serve This Food

Fresh.

Storing This Food

Store garlic in a cool, dark, airy place to keep it from drying out or sprouting. (When garlic

sprouts, diallyl disulfide—the sulfur compound that gives fresh garlic its distinctive taste

and odor—goes into the new growth and the garlic itself becomes milder.) An unglazed

ceramic “garlic keeper” will protect the garlic from moisture while allowing air to circulate

freely around the head and cloves. Properly stored, garlic will keep for several months.

Do not refrigerate garlic unless you live in a very hot and humid climate.

Preparing This Food

To peel garlic easily, blanch the cloves in boiling water for about 30 seconds, then drain and

cool. Slice off the root end, and the skin should come right off without sticking to your fin-

gers. Or you can put a head of fresh, raw garlic on a flat surface and hit the flat end with the

flat side of a knife. The head will come apart and the skin should come off easily.

To get the most “garlicky” taste from garlic cloves, chop or mash them or extract the

oil with a garlic press. When you cut into a garlic clove, you tear its cell walls, releasing

an enzyme that converts sulfur compounds in the garlic into ammonia, pyruvic acid, and

diallyl disulfide.

What Happens When You Cook This Food

Heating garlic destroys its diallyl disulfide, which is why cooked garlic is so much milder

tasting than raw garlic.