Giant Garlic

I have seen this but never tasted it. Is the flavour the same as regular sized garlic?

garlic.jpg

I've seen this marketed as "elephant garlic". I haven't tried it myself, but I have heard that it is milder than conventional garlic.

-Paul W.

I've seen this marketed as "elephant garlic". I haven't tried it myself, but I have heard that it is milder than conventional garlic.

-Paul W.

Yes, the 'elephant garlic' that I've gotten has tended to be milder. But, like everything, it all depends on specific items.

Elephant garlic is not true garlic. It is a different species and related to leeks. I used to grow it, and do not care for it. I like the strong garlic that comes from CA Gilroy area.

Gilroy! I was there once for the annual Garlic Festival. I watched the crowning of the Garlic Queen... there's a resume item for ya!

Yep, went there a couple of times, and even tasted Garlic Ice Cream! Came home smelling like a garlic head!

I raced sports cars at Laguna Seca for several years and on our way back to Canada we would always try and stop at the Olive Pit in Gilroy. See https://www.olivepit.com/

They had a giant olive tasting 'bar' and we used to taste our way through variants we had never seen before and loaded up on the ones we liked best.

They also did a range of garlic products - the town of Gilroy is the " Garlic Capital of the World" and holds a big garlic festival every summer (we were always down racing in August and the festival was in July, so we never connected with it).

I used to visit friends in San Jose for the IndyCar weekend at Laguna Seca and we would drive by Gilroy. You could also always tell in San Jose when the prevailing wind was from the South because of the whiff of garlic in the air.

Randall Grahm named Bonny Doon's grenache/mourvedre red wine blend Clos de Gilroy because the first releases used grapes from vines near that town. The label had a picture of Marcel Proust.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Yup, like everyone says, milder. Can make a good spread though, as there's much more mass there.

Speaking of California garlic. I have a professional connection to that. In my previous life I was a specialist in permitting large private (non-Utility Company, that is) electrical power plants in California, namely co-generation plants. They were "co" because they took what would otherwise be refinery waste heat energy and repurposed it, usually putting it back in the ground to loosen up otherwise slow/stodgy/stuck oil heavy oil reserves. But in Gilroy? We put in a garlic dryer!

The same trip that I went to Gilroy for the festivities, we also had stopped earlier at The Stinking Rose, a garlic-heavy restaurant in San Francisco.

I have always loved fresh garlic, I enjoy the knife-smashing process, the peel coming off, and the dicing. I use it a lot and now with my family of one, I still go through two to three heads in a month or a little more. I always get the Gilroy Garlic, it is fresh and lasts.

Pumpkin and I go through 4-6 heads a month. Just tonight, I gently melted a little butter in a pot, added a sliced clove of garlic, covered it for 5 minutes, and the fragrance was beautifully mellowed. Then I warmed up some chicken pieces, added some fusilli, olives, and grated parm. Easy and yummy.

But it's the garlic that made the dish!

That reminds me that I went to a garlic restaurant in Stockholm called Garlic & Shots and later to its branch in London.

The menu is headed 'No dishes are served without garlic. You can aways order extra garlic, but never less'

https://garlicandshots.se/
http://www.garlicandshots.com/

[Jenise]

Pumpkin and I go through 4-6 heads a month.

I probably do too. It's a rare day that I don't put a clove to work and there are days when many more are needed. I've been stocking up on local garlic. One local grower makes huge braids which are lovely, and I've routinely purchased one every fall. But the garlic he uses are the plain large white bulbs, and there's more interesting garlic around--I'll take any with red or purple skin over all the others. So I've been stocking up on those. Will need 3 or 4 pounds to tide me over until spring.