35 replies to this topic

[Shel_B]

Another vote for peeled garlic. What I buy is Christopher Ranch, grown in the US fwiw. Consistently good quality and very easy to use (all one needs to do is trim the ends)...

Bill Christopher, in an article written a few years ago, confessed to using Chinese garlic in those products using prepared garlic. He said that he could buy Chinese garlic cheaper than he could grow it himself. Here's the link.

[Ed P]

Maybe three years ago the garlic here in Atlanta at the stores I frequent (Publix and Whole Foods) got so bad I started buying peeled cloves. It got better the next year, but the last few months it has taken a turn for the worse again. Probably 3/4 of the heads have some cloves I have to throw away. I think most is Mexican, South/Central American, and California. I have never bought heads of garlic at the asian market, I just assumed it was chinese (and I think the couple times I looked it was). I will have to check out the garlic at Super-H next time I go.

[patrickamory]

+1 on the small purple-skinned garlic. I don't know where it comes from (is it Mexico?) but it's nearly always fresher, firmer and more flavorful than typical large supermarket garlic heads.

It's also what's sold in Chinatown, Thai groceries, Indian groceries and Mexican markets here. The only problem is that it can sometimes be sprouting, and since it usually comes in a set of 5 heads tightly packet in a long net bag, that can be hard to spot.

P.S. Produce in NYC is beyond terrible. It's the biggest obstacle to good eating and cooking here.

[pbear]

Another vote for peeled garlic. What I buy is Christopher Ranch, grown in the US fwiw. Consistently good quality and very easy to use (all one needs to do is trim the ends)...

Bill Christopher, in an article written a few years ago, confessed to using Chinese garlic in those products using prepared garlic. He said that he could buy Chinese garlic cheaper than he could grow it himself. Here's the link.

What the article says is that "his company uses imports in some prepared products, such as sauces." I was talking about their peeled garlic, which the packaging states is grown in California. For that matter, what I care about is the quality, not the provenance. I only mentioned the latter because it had been raised by others.

[ChrisTaylor]

Heh. This is something I run into in Australia all the time, too. The supermarkets and grocers often stock imported garlic--usually from China, but sometimes from Spain and Mexico and South America too. Sometimes you'll find Australian garlic. It's perhaps even common for the imported stuff (and, sadly, sometimes even the local stuff) to be at least partly fucked. A clove or two. Sometimes the entire bulb. It's really, really, really, really, really, really, really annoying to buy a bulb with the intent of using the whole thing/most of it in a particular dish, only to find that you can't because the whole thing/most of it has gone to God.

I always carefully inspect the bulbs of garlic I buy in the shops and avoid, if possible, the little mesh sacks containing 3-5 bulbs (I tend to buy garlic and all other fresh ingredients at most a day before I want to use them) ... but still, sometimes I get burnt.

[budrichard]

Purchased from a Racine Wisconsin Pick 'n Save, Garlic, product of USA at $2.49USD per Pound.
Excellent large heads, fresh, beautiful cloves.
Hard to go back to Chinese garlic which makes one want to stop using garlic.-Dick