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In defence of garlic in a jar

• sudden_dystopia 4y ago
  I use minced garlic all the time. It even comes in a squeeze bottle now which I find amazing. I use granulated garlic as well. There is nothing wrong with this. The results speak for themselves. People worry too damn much about what other people think.
• jakzurr 4y ago
  This article is long, funny, and has some excellent tips for us seniors who need a little shortcut, or are just having a nice, lazy morning.
  • benj111 4y ago
    I'm not sure I agree with the basic premise though. Maybe I'm not bothered what others think, but for me, half of 'learning how to cook' is finding what works for you. I now buy 'proper' garlic, but I still buy the cheapest tins of tomatoes because that's what works for me.
    • vrc 4y ago
      I buy the frozen ginger and garlic cubes TJs has and that’s been a revelation. Fresh taste, no prep, only slight modifications to use. The snobs can go rub stainless steel with their garlic scented hands!
      • rkangel 4y ago
        I buy ginger in a squeezy tube that I keep in the fridge. And I use real garlic. And I have bags of frozen herbs in the freezer. But often I use fresh ones. As I think we all agree here - it's about what works for you. Not just in general, but on that day.
      • jakzurr 4y ago
        That sounds tasty, thanks!
        • vrc 4y ago
          Small modifications = don’t plop it into hot oil like you’d do with fresh ginger garlic or it will splatter on you. Usually I saute onion or something else and then add the cube. The brand I find in my local grocery is the same as TJs — Dorot
    • bethling 4y ago
      I think also what happens is that some people feel that the comparison is between doing everything from scratch and taking a couple shortcuts. Sure - not using jarred garlic or some other timesaver won't taste as good as starting with the original ingredients. But really, it's more often between taking shortcuts and not cooking at all. When I have time, I love doing everything myself. But after a long work day, I often don't have the energy. But if there's something like a meal kit that I know I can cook, that'll stop me from having dinner delivered.
• politelemon 4y ago
  Go deep into any topic that excites or interests you, and you will find the worst of people's behaviors on display. Very often there will be a vocal, toxic minority whose opinions sit firmly in the realm of gatekeeping and polarization, and a silent majority will stay silent as it's simpler to avoid confrontation, or not think about the implications of such. Author's unfortunate disability made them realize this, though you can see this pretty much everywhere. At the same time, a lot of people put too much stock (ha...) in what other people think is right and 'proper'. It's entirely possible to love cooking and use prepared ingredients, do what works for you. It's entirely possible to enjoy pineapple on a pizza, and a well done steak, with a cocktail, eat what you like and for yourself, don't eat for others.
  • raspyberr 4y ago
    Nothing inherently wrong with gatekeeping.
    • paskozdilar 4y ago
      Nothing inherently right with gatekeeping. Many harmful effects, though. Alienating valuable members comes to mind.
      • raspyberr 4y ago
        So if it's not inherently wrong OR right, then it must be inherently neutral. Which means it can be used for both positive or negative purposes. You gave a negative purpose. I would argue that health and safety can often be seen as a form of positive gatekeeping. In context of the original post, using a knife "properly".
        • paskozdilar 4y ago
          Sure, but that's not what we usually mean by gatekeeping. Controlling who can and cannot join the community based on some arbitrary, subjective critera is what we usually mean by gatekeeping. E.g.: FDA does not gatekeep - they enforce safety criteria to products; metal music fans often gatekeep - they enforce their own opinion of other metal music bands/fans and are trying to police the metal music scene.
• onion2k 4y ago
  Garlic in a jar is the React of cooking.
  • zachrip 4y ago
    Can you explain further? Whenever I try to create abstractions around alliums it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
    • onion2k 4y ago
      It's technically 'cheating' but it's perfectly acceptable to most people because it gets the job done as well as you could do it without it. People who complain about it are snobs. Also, I use an ungodly amount of it.
      • ImPleadThe5th 4y ago
        > Also, I use an ungodly amount of it. (Same) Lol Out of curiosity what makes react cheating to you?
• mrmincent 4y ago
  I feel like snobs really miss out on enjoying the full spectrum of the thing that they’re snobby about. I know people who only drink single origin coffee and single malt whisky and the like, but to me often a good quality blended product of either usually tastes just as good, and far cheaper. For me, being free to enjoy something for what it is, rather than what is not, makes life much more enjoyable.
  • Saint_Genet 4y ago
    Beer is pretty funny that way. The most fancy, expensive and artisanal beard guy stuff is often impossible to distinguish in a blind test, it's just sharp tasting hop juice.
    • thinkingemote 4y ago
      It's spectacle and consumption. It's not about the actual thing, it's how consuming it makes you feel. So if drinking one beer makes you feel cool and part of a group and another beer that tastes the same doesn't, then many people will think the first beer is authentic and more real. In a way the author of the article is actually wanting this phantom sense of belonging and authenticity. They are looking for that feeling of buying and consuming stuff.
    • philliphaydon 4y ago
      Atleast with beer you can actually get different tastes. The tests with water are funny, when knowing the name or price people pick the most expensive one as the best tasting, when it turns out that all the bottles were filled with tap water.
      • wink 4y ago
        Maybe it's also different levels of carbonation, there are definitely at least 2 brands of locally available water that I can pick out. One just tastes a little bit off (and is REALLY carbonated) and the other one is so salty you can only stomach it when you're used to it. My parents used to buy the brand and only after not drinking it for a few years I was unpleasantly surprised... But in general, yeah - uncarbonated ones I've never ever tasted any difference to local tap water.
• odshoifsdhfs 4y ago
  I use normal bulbs of garlic as it was as I learned to cook (my country grows and uses garlic a lot) but I had no problems using 'pre prepared' garlic when I lived in other countries, BUT I would recommend everyone that does so to make sure it is sourced ethically (seems most peeled garlic in America comes from china, which doesn't have a good track record: https://www.ft.com/content/1416a056-833b-11e7-94e2-c5b903247afd https://www.ft.com/content/1416a056-833b-11e7-94e2-c5b903247... )
  • marak830 4y ago
    I was going to post this as well.
  • b112 4y ago
    China has entire regions now, where they have to pollinate fruit trees by hand, due to excessive pesticide use. Saw it in a movie about declining bee populations. So there are additional reasons to not eat garlic from China. Regardless, source local is a good thing anyhow.
  • thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > seems most peeled garlic in America comes from china I used to eat at a restaurant in Shanghai which had a fridge in the back, in which enormous bags of pre-peeled garlic cloves were visible.
  • m0llusk 4y ago
    Not to go too far with commercial promotion, but I'm pretty sure that in the US garlic distribution, especially the processed options, are dominated by Christopher Ranch in Northern California: https://christopherranch.com/products/ https://christopherranch.com/products/
• wodenokoto 4y ago
  I would just like to add: frozen peas and spinach are amazing. Doesn’t spoil, can easily be added to pots or pans and often tastes better than the fresh alternative for a fraction of the price. Put them in a small bowl and microwave for a minute or two, add butter or olive oil and salt and pepper and you have a delicious, cheap and healthy hot side dish to any meal. I’ve also experimented with buying frozen soup vegetables as an easy shortcut when making broth. Carrots and onions usually come out with a poor texture after being frozen but they are discarded when cooking stock.
  • andybak 4y ago
    Frozen veg is usually healthier and fresher than "fresh". The only reason to avoid it is because the texture changes. If you're making a casserole or anything where "crunch" doesn't matter then there's no reason not to use frozen.
    • anthonypasq 4y ago
      frozen spinach is not even remotely similar to fresh spinach
      • samatman 4y ago
        Flash-frozen spinach is basically identical to wilted spinach once it's in the pan. It's obviously not a salad ingredient. No one was claiming it is.
      • andybak 4y ago
        It is when sufficiently cooked. But that aside, spinach was a weird example to choose to disagree on considering I used the word "crunch"
• wolframhempel 4y ago
  I think in cooking, there is a joy that comes from the raw, fresh ingredients themselves. If you ever watch videos of Gordon Ramsay buying ingredients at Borough Market you see the passion he feels for fresh produce or a perfect piece of fish. I very much share in that. I've tried to learn how to cook light and fragrant Vietnamese and Thai dishes lately. Coming home with grocery bags full of fresh lemon grass, thai basil and vegetables is just really satisfying in its own right and motivates to cook.
• asojfdowgh 4y ago
  I only have the freshest kipper during breakfast. To care much about garlic itself, when the flavor is 99% based on how long you heat it, would be a pinnacle of snobbishness. plus, though I'm not certain, doesn't the process of breaking down garlic change the flavor itself? freshly broken down garlic vs jarred broken down garlic, the latter I'd imagine to be "richer"
• cttet 4y ago
  This sentence in the article quite contradict with itself: "In a culture obsessed with the right and wrong way of doing things" But it also have this negative sentiment towards culture and point out "the right and wrong way of doing things". The only way for me to make it consistent is that it is a relative self-reflective view that "I am also part of the culture and this is destined to happen".
  • YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
    This. Someone who writes 2400 words on how hot takes on social media about garlic are wrong doesn't really have a cooking hobby, they have a cooking-themed blogging hobby.
  • thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > The only way for me to make it consistent is that it is a relative self-reflective view that "I am also part of the culture and this is destined to happen". Consider the view that American culture is devoted largely to worrying about how evil American culture is, and that this is dysfunctional. Forget whether it's accurate. As an American, you can't technically take this view without being part of the problem you're identifying. But if it's enough of a problem, maybe it's worth sucking up the logical issues.
• throw93232 4y ago
  In europe garlic in jar is "snobbish" option. It is 5x more expensive, produces a lot of waste and has brand and "proper bio" markers. Normal garlic you buy at streetmarket or grow yourself, is noname option for poor people.
  • eternauta3k 4y ago
    Where in "Europe"? The streetmarket here is super expensive, cheap garlic comes from the supermarket.
    • LaGrange 4y ago
      Poland, circa 1995
  • dagw 4y ago
    streetmarket or grow yourself, is noname option for poor people. In 'my' Europe, shopping at street markets and growing your own food is a typical rich people activity.
• simiones 4y ago
  Most, or all, cooking pop-culture is coming from a standpoint that puts the taste of food before any other concern. And yes, in general fresh produce processed right before cooking is unbeatable in taste (ignoring the large world of home-made preserves). I don't think its ableist to focus on this in your cooking show, and sing the praises of the tastiest possible food. Of course, in practice, for people who aren't working as cooks at least, there are many concerns more important than getting the last possible bit of taste from your food (that you may not even taste until you've developed your palate a bit). Convenience and prep-time are extremely important as well, and will often dominate your ability and willingness to cook half-way decent food far above the freshness of the ingredients. The biggest problem is when such normal compromises start being associated with pride and shame. For example, I greatly enjoy high-quality coffee (especially Panama Gesha varieties), and I know how important is to freshly grind it to get the perfect taste. But most days, I just need a quick cup of coffee before work, so I make a cup of pre-ground cheap coffee. I don't think it's "just as good", but I'm also not in any way ashamed of using such inferior coffee.
  • sybercecurity 4y ago
    A wise old co-worker once told me: "The secret to happiness in life is bad taste." He logic being that if you only expect the best, you will be disappointed most of the time and to learn to like the mediocre (or lower). Rather stoic in nature but applies to "snobs" as most people associate food/wine/coffee/booze snobs as always complaining about things not being correct.
• tims33 4y ago
  I think what the author meant to say is to ignore your critics. No one ruined the author's love of cooking other than the author taking their statements to heart.
  • dubswithus 4y ago
    True. Also, you can always criticize your friends right back.
  • Gigachad 4y ago
    Also while some of the comments are needlessly harsh, they are at some level true. Fresh stuff usually does taste better and cost less. If you told someone “I’m using this because I’m disabled so it’s easier”, no one is going to second guess that. But for the average person, they are better off doing things the suggested way. I used to use things like pre grated cheeses until someone told me they are vastly inferrer to grating it yourself so I switched and my cooking improved. Sure, some people make a song and dance about it and call ingredients dried cat vomit but they are correct that fresh is much better if you can manage it. And even the hardcore home cooks will look the other way on things like frozen puff pastry.
• tappio 4y ago
  This is quite funny. We have a group of friends really obsessed with making great food. We cook together menus with top notch ingredients retrieved from local sources, spending days studying recipes and planning menus and practicing each step. I love to make great foods for any friends who visit, if I can make time into my calendar. At the same time, we also share all possible hacks for making fast and efficient foods, sharing information which ready made canned things taste good and which not. Never discarding something because it's not "pure". Some processed goods and premade meals are amazing! Everything has their time and place. Being food snob 24/7 must be super exhausting. It has its time and place, sure, but most of the time I want something tasty with minimal effort.
  • sumtechguy 4y ago
    For this sort of thing. 'Cheat' where you dont care and and prep where you do. I have one recipe that is pretty much only canned items. I have tried doing scratch on it. That thing will just not come out the right way. But the 'right way' is it tastes the same as my mom made it. She used canned. Canned/pre-prepped has usually one thing going for it. constancy. The taste/shape/feel will be pretty much spot on every time. When going self prep though your ingredients can make a wild difference on how things come out. I have one I make from scratch and just depending on the day the cut of meat will be 'off' somehow. Looks identical to all the prev times. But still comes out different. The major downside to canned/pre-prepped is usually salt. Many are heavy in salt (which I personally like) but I know many dont. One thing I always cheat on is tomato sauces. I rarely can make it better than something out of a jar from the store.
    • gigaflop 4y ago
      I will never not default to using canned beans in recipes. My weekly meal prep involves mostly fresh ingredients, save for the canned beans and microwaved rice. The whole process takes about an hour already, and I just have no desire to cook the beans or rice in my tiny kitchen. And, the packages they come in are perfect size for what I need.
    • UncleMeat 4y ago
• marmarama 4y ago
  In the UK we can buy Italian minced garlic (Gia brand) in a tube (like tubes of tomato puree) and it's pretty good, though a bit salty. Much better than the jars of oil-preserved garlic I've tried. However my mind was blown when I discovered frozen minced garlic, and frozen minced chillies which are now pretty widely available in supermarkets here. Once the block has melted in the pan they're basically indistinguishable from fresh. The frozen minced green chillies are also great because, being made from a mixture of chillies, the heat is basically standardised, so there's no risk of accidentally making the dish unsatisfactory to eat because one of the chillies was unexpectedly potent, or nearly as bad, unexpectedly weak.
  • philliphaydon 4y ago
    But those serve 2 different purposes. The diced garlic in preserved oil is good for cooking in a pan, but the tube of garlic is handy when you want to mix it with butter to make a dip or sauce. I wouldn't use the tube while cooking.
    • marmarama 4y ago
      If I need diced garlic then sure, though I'd probably just chop garlic cloves for that. For me the inconvenience of garlic comes from getting it to minced texture to maximise the flavour - peeling it's not that big an issue once you've learned the 'gently crush it with the side of the knife' technique. But I can't really think of a dish I cook regularly where I must have diced garlic as opposed to minced. Even making aglio e olio I'm perfectly happy with frying minced garlic. You get much more garlic flavour for the same amount of garlic that way, and because you cook it lower and slower (larger surface area) there's less chance of burning the outside and making everything bitter.
      • philliphaydon 4y ago
        Living in Singapore I discovered the diced garlic, it opened a whole new world. I love LOVE garlic but I hate the smell on my fingers that lingers after dicing up alot of garlic. So being able to throw like a few table spoons in the pan for cooking stir fry or such instead of dicing up 10 cloves is handy. And I don't need extra oil. But the tube stuff, if you soften butter, mix butter, tube garlic, and any spices you like, then put that on bread or use it as a dip, omg. :-0~~~~ sooo good. Both have their usages. Soup I just throw the cloves in the soup without peeling. Or use black garlic. Chicken soup made with black garlic is the beez kneez.
• raspyberr 4y ago
  Everything is about trade offs. Raw ingredients are the peak of versatility because it's the base from which all the variations come from. But it takes effort to get those variations. Grating carrots can be annoying so maybe some people buy bags of grated carrots. But you won't be getting any carrot sticks from that bag. Mincing garlic is annoying so garlic can come pre-minced. You obviously won't be getting sliced or whole garlic or black garlic from the pre-minced garlic. Also, products oxidise and lose their flavour quickly. I prefer buying whole peppercorns and using a pepper grinder. Some people take it a step further and buy whole spices and temper+grind them. The garlic will lose flavour quickly when minced so it needs to be stored in either oil or vinegar or frozen. That again will limit its versatility. If it's in olive oil, I may not want to use it in east Asian cooking. Also, convenience products add sugar and salt which again is something that you may not want. In my opinion, if you know what's in it and you're happy with any limitations it creates, then by all means use it. I imagine cooking "snobs" like cooking and value the versatility of the raw ingredients. When given a bunch of raw ingredients the world opens up with possibilities.
  • rob74 4y ago
    This! Whole garlic bulbs (as well as onions, potatoes etc. etc.) will last for months if stored properly, the "convenience" versions need extra packaging, have to be refrigerated or cooled, and still can't be stored for very long. You don't have to dice the garlic by hand though, you can use a garlic press. Before anyone calls me a snob, I use some convenience products too, e.g. pre-cut and mixed salad - I hate cleaning salad, plus in this case the convenience product has more or less the same shelf life as an uncut salad. Also, after several quiche disasters where we ended up eating "minced quiche" because it leaked or refused to be removed in one piece, I am a huge fan of convenience quiche crust - tasty, crispy, and (almost) 100% leak-proof! If you go down the "only use base products" rabbit hole, you also have to make your own pasta, because after all that's also a convenience product...
    • corrral 4y ago
      > Whole garlic bulbs (as well as onions, potatoes etc. etc.) will last for months if stored properly, Mine have a lot of green material growing in them by like 3 weeks, max. Fridge, not fridge, doesn't matter. What am I doing wrong? My potatoes and onions also sure as shit don't last "months". Again, maybe 3 weeks before they're getting iffy, often sooner. Yes, kept in the dark, not like open on the counter in sunlight.
• dairylee 4y ago
  > Shredded cheese when you could grate your own I find pre-grated cheese so bizarre. The cost alone compared to a normal block of cheese should be enough to put anyone off. It's not even like it's an arduous task to grate it yourself (Or is it... [1]). 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWS3IxfDOHE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWS3IxfDOHE
  • Hellbanevil 4y ago
    The bigger blocks of cheese are cheaper. I've noticed not much difference in price in the small blocks (The blocks that fit in your hand. I'm to lazy to look up the weight.) are sometimes more expensive than grated, or sliced. I'm pretty sure the companies know most of us do not want 5 lbs of cheese in our fridge, so they jack up the smaller blocks? While I'm here, I try to buy my spices, including dehydrated onion, at Costco quantities. Most restaurants use the same, but get better pricing through Sysco type companies. Some Costco's sell yeast blocks which last a long time refrigerated. If you are lucky, you can find high gluten bread flour there too. It's much cheaper than the better bread flours (King Arthur, etc.) at the supermarket. The one thing I disagree with is bottled lime/lemon juice. After it's opened once, it tastes nothing close to a fresh lemon/lime.
  • have_faith 4y ago
    It also sometimes has extra ingredients to stop the strips sticking to each other and in the majority of cases uses lower quality cheese.
    • YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
      And those ingredients add to the allergen potential. And even with them, it still has a fraction of the shelf life of cheese in block form due to surface area:volume ratio.
  • ginko 4y ago
    >The cost alone compared to a normal block of cheese should be enough to put anyone off Hm, I find grated cheese is often cheaper pound by pound than blocks of cheese. Same for other precut ingredients like bacon for instance. The reason being that it's an easy way for producers to process the ends which can't be sold otherwise.
• killingtime74 4y ago
  I went to a seafood barbecue course. They told me professional chefs use things like this all the time.
• mhh__ 4y ago
  "Cooking should be a pleasure, if it's a job get a takeaway" - Marco Pierre-White
• n4r9 4y ago
  My wife once bought us tickets to a cookery class. The leader, a professional chef, told us that he never minced garlic. He would take a couple of bulbs, peel the cloves, bung them in a blender with some oil, then pot up the mix and put it in the fridge for the next weeks' use.
• Jistern 4y ago
  Unless missiles are raining down on your kitchen or there is a famine in your area, there's no defense for using garlic in a jar. Never. Ever. Learn how to peel and then crush, slice, and mince garlic quickly. There are a variety of techniques. Watch some videos on YouTube. If you are desperate to save time, you may use canned tomatoes. But that should be a last resort. Fresh garlic and fresh onions are two of life's simple pleasures. Seriously.
  • askew 4y ago
    A lot of these 'lazy' or convenience foods aren't just useful in times of famine or war, but they make it easier for those who are less able to cook from scratch. Somebody with dexterity issues will benefit from pre-prepared foods.
  • irb 4y ago
    I'm guessing you didn't actually read the article, just commented from the headline, because I think disability is a pretty good excuse to use pre-prepared ingredients.
  • proto_lambda 4y ago
    Well, good thing people don't need your approval for their cooking. You should still stop spreading rhetoric like this because, as the central topic of the article demonstrates, some people will still take it to heart even though their cooking is none of your business.
  • amanaplanacanal 4y ago
    Most of the year, canned tomatoes are much better than fresh. Except when they are locally in season, then fresh tomatoes are amazing.
  • t43562 4y ago
    if garlic is the main flavour e.g. in Cacik (ja-jik) in Turkey then yes you want to use fresh. Otherwise it really depends on where it's supposed to sit in terms of importance. On the whole though, a lot of classic foods can survive a bit of imperfection and still be delicious. Why would you crap on someone for taking an easy route when they need to if the food is still tasty?
• em500 4y ago
  Maybe the author should try James May's cooking show/book[1]. It's a decidedly anti-snob take on cooking, with a focus on amateurs ("You wouldn't be reading this if you knew how to cook") and convenience, unabashedly using low class preserved ingredients that last forever in storage (spam, alphabet pasta). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_May:_Oh_Cook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_May:_Oh_Cook
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• Sebb767 4y ago
  On a similar note, real photographers use prime lenses. Zoom lenses are for noobs who can't relocate. You also put your prime lenses on DSLRs, mirrorless cameras are clearly ulterior. If you think smartphones are a camera, you're the reason we're behind as species. For you coffee, by the way, you grind it yourself, then you use your weiss distributor and flattener before you tamp it. If your coffee doesn't cost at least 20$ per pound and involves at least 5 manual steps, there's no way it can be good. If you put pre-ground coffee in a machine, you might as well skip these steps and drink directly from the toilet. And since we're on HN, real developers use Unix as an IDE. With vi, obviously - emacs people can quit right now. And don't even get me started on those IntelliJ script kiddies --- Seriously, there are always be people in each niche who think that their way is the only way and people who stray from the path are to feel the wrath of god [0]. I could go on and on with examples like this. Funnily enough, this quite often doesn't even work for them (I can tell from personal experience that bringing a DSLR with gear up a mountain is not pure fun, for example). Simply do what works for you and ignore them - unless you asked them or they pay you, their opinion is pretty irrelevant. [0] Although it should be mentioned that usually quite a few people just act snobby for the joke and aren't actually on a crusade. The pineaple-pizza-thingy seems to be mostly a joke, for example.
  • automatic6131 4y ago
    >The pineaple-pizza-thingy seems to be mostly a joke, for example. Tell me you haven't visited Italy/don't know any Italians well, without telling me you haven't been to Italy.
    • FooHentai 4y ago
      Something I believe is that persistent satire and sincere belief are indistinguishable in many settings, and that persistent application of satire tends to cultivate sincere belief in the same thing as the idea spreads around. Not that I think Italians look down on Hawaiian pizza as a result of satire, that's more that Italians often see a national dish that's been heavily evolved overseas in a negative light, and Hawaiian pizza is the shining example of it to be seized upon. Chicago Deep Dish being another. But online it's definitely an issue - Ironic shit-posting of dumb things eventually leads to areas chock full of people with those exact beliefs for real. That's how meme magic works. Meme something, no matter how dumb, persistently enough, and it'll enter the collective conscious as a sincerely held belief.
• adammarples 4y ago
  A game changer is a little silicon tube from amazon in which you can roll the garlic cloves and the skin peels right off. I can run through a bulb in less than a minute, and then you can mince the garlic and freeze it into ice cubes if needed for later.
  • kzrdude 4y ago
    Gently squeezing the clove under the blade of the knife on the cutting-board and it's easy to peel that way too. I find it works just fine, especially in combination with just chopping it afterwards (instead of using a garlic crusher).
    • adammarples 4y ago
      I don't like to crush the garlic because I tend to grate it
• mtrycz2 4y ago
  "In Defence of..." articles considered harmful. All a needless justification of resisting peer pressure instead of letting it bounce off and enjoying life.
• GrumpySloth 4y ago
  This article is really weird. This person developed insecurity about using jarred garlic, because they saw (or imagined) that someone in college looked at them wrong when they used it. Then they proceeded to look out for comments about jarred garlic on Twitter, because what people say on Twitter is important. And then they complain that the snobs don't think about disabled people when they behave snobby. What a surprise. When I say that running regularly is healthy for you, I also don't think about people who don't have legs, have deformed legs, or have other disabilities preventing them from running. What sort of a complaint is that? Overall, it gives the impression that this person actively searched for something to feel insecure about and then wrote a looong article about it. Also, it's weird to label mincing garlic yourself as snobby, when it's the cheap option done by almost everyone. Forget about finding jarred garlic in a pleb fridge. Hipsters with creative eating habits? Much more likely. And for people without applicable disabilities, jarred garlic doesn't save all that much time. Time spent mincing garlic barely registers compared to other activities in the kitchen. And jarred garlic is A LOT more expensive[1]. But if you have disabilities, it may be the rational choice, yup, no argument about that. And even when it's not the rational choice, who cares? When I cook, I don't check on Twitter if my way of cooking is approved by snobs. Go on detox from Twitter. Your life will get much better than by fighting imagined ableism. [1]: No surprise here really. Fresh food is almost always several times cheaper than processed food. After all, it's less work to make it.
  • floren 4y ago
    > Overall, it gives the impression that this person actively searched for something to feel insecure about and then wrote a looong article about it. Hello and welcome to modern long-form thinkpieces. The Walrus kinda seems like it wants to be a Canadian version of The Atlantic, so it's par for the course.
• leto_ii 4y ago
  One pernicious side-effect of gatekeeping snobbery is that it pushes beginners to adopt techniques and tools that don't make sense that early in the game. To give a concrete example: personally I'm an interested pool beginner (~c- player). One day, while at the local pool hall I saw a couple of guys that I could immediately tell were less experienced than me. They both had ~1k euros Predator cues, jump cues, break cues, the whole thing. They went on about deflection and Masse shots (pretty advanced stuff) and then proceeded to fail most of the pocket shots they played. They would have been way better served by the cheap pool hall cues and just focusing on the right posture when they leaned on the table...
• jbverschoor 4y ago
  Funny that everybody has examples in all sorts of fields, but the exact same thing is very present with programming. I guess we're all snobs if we don't acknowledge that.
• the-dude 4y ago
  Be careful with garlic in jars, there is risk of botulism : https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/stinking_facts_about_garlic https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/stinking_facts_about_garlic
• ginko 4y ago
  Crushed garlic in a jar is a pretty common ingredient in Korean cooking AFAIK. The garlic gets milder after being aged for a bit.
• parkingrift 4y ago
  This is honestly just a sad case study in people putting way too much value in other peoples opinions. In this case literal complete strangers. And it’s a uniquely modern phenomenon because even 15-20 years ago it would have been nearly impossible to find these people who take pride in gate keeping. The modern world has given these people a massive megaphone and outsized influence. Their opinions are bad, they should feel bad, and you should ignore them with prejudice. Live your own life and be happy. You don’t need to min/max everything because some loudmouth purist on the internet insists it. I’ve seen Gordon Ramsay cook with tomatoes from a can. Go ahead and use whatever you find simplest or most cost effective and truly who gives a shit what internet experts think.
  • tsimionescu 4y ago
    > even 15-20 years ago it would have been nearly impossible to find these people who take pride in gate keeping. This is wildly inaccurate. Especially in cooking, notions of what constitutes proper cooking, especially when evaluating women's worth as house keepers, have been extremely common in the vast majority of traditional societies, along with the toxicity.
    • parkingrift 4y ago
      Snobs have always existed. What I said it was hard to find those snobs because you had to actually meet them in real life. There was no Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit to tell people what they're doing wrong. You had to go find a book, join a club, read a newspaper, or something similar. It was exponentially more difficult to find a snob.
• globular-toast 4y ago
  I use mostly fresh ingredients but not because of food snobs. If anything I'm the snob. I genuinely think it tastes better and I like to know exactly what I'm putting in to my food. Some things store better than others and are fine to use dried/frozen/preserved etc. A few things I can think of that cannot be substituted: coffee (freshly ground makes all the difference), basil (freshly picked and properly prepared), coriander (freshly ground), cumin (seeds must be used whole of freshly ground), tomatoes (fresh or tinned whole tomatoes taste way better than any pre-made sauce or passata).
• andybak 4y ago
  The culinary arts are second only to the world of audiophiles in being seriously in need of some double-blind tests to dispell long-standing myths. The trouble is some myths are true. I have a strong hunch about a few that aren't but I'd love to see a TV show that tested some pundits to actually tell the difference.
  • wffurr 4y ago
    Serious Eats does a lot of double blind testing and analysis of long standing culinary myths.
    • bryanlarsen 4y ago
      They're mostly Cook's Illustrated personnel who have been doing similar testing for many decades. Similarly, many of the Serious Eats alumni have moved on to do their own thing. (J. Kenji López-Alt for example). But their focus is very much on taste, sacrificing convenience to maximize taste. Only when the double blind shows taste to be equivalent do their recipes contain the more convenient step. If you read the entire article prose it'll give you some hints on which conveniences will have little effect on taste and which will significantly compromise the dish.
• snarfy 4y ago
  I have IBS. There is no food worse for me than garlic. It's delicious and I wish I could eat it. High in FODMAPs apparently.
• fifilura 4y ago
  It is not that difficult to use and store fresh onions and garlic. I think none of them should go in a jar, I believe they emit some sulphuric fumes that makes them smell really bad when they are put in a closed jar. Have you ever tried putting half of an onion in the fridge? Corn has a similar problem, i don't like put that in the fridge as leftovers. Most other things are fine. Cilantro/coriander is ok to put in a jar, but the remaining taste is 1% of the fresh .
  • cableshaft 4y ago
    > Have you ever tried putting half of an onion in the fridge? I do it all the time. I just put it in a sealed glass container. Use it again in the next day or two. No big deal. Longer than that and the onion starts to soften, but can be still usable.
  • floren 4y ago
    > Have you ever tried putting half of an onion in the fridge? I wrap it in aluminum foil and never have a problem. Bonus: touching the foil neutralizes the smell of onion on my hands.
• traceroute66 4y ago
  The problem I have with this blog post is that the author is conflating two things. The author has a disability, and the author's disability means they struggle with fine tasks. Obviously absolutely nothing wrong with that part. The author then launches into a lengthly tirade about "food snobs", some of which is not really supported by facts. Not cool. Because the problem is that its hard fact that pre-ground spice looses its potency very quickly compared to its whole counterparts. And its a hard fact that you have to "do stuff" to garlic in order to put it in a jar or a tube in order to preserve it (you will have to suspend it in something, many processes will likely add salt to it, I suspect quite a few will add preservatives to it, others may even heat it in order to sterilise for long shelf life). e.g. quick internet search, example product "Gia Garlic Puree 90G", its ingredients ? Garlic (55% - Origin Italy/Spain), Sunflower Oil, Salt, Preservative (Potassium Metabisulphite) So, 55% of what is in the tube is garlic. The rest of it ? Salt, oil and preservatives. Calling people "food snobs" for pointing out hard facts is not cool. The fact that garlic in bulb form is different to tin/tube garlic is simply an inescapable fact. Different texture, different strength, different everything. It is quite clearly not "just pre-chopped garlic". In the end, IMHO the author should have focused more on the quality of life aspect and less on the ranting. I have a lot of respect for the author in finding ways to adapt in order to maintain their quality of life and their love for cooking. I think that would have made for a far more interesting blog post than an unsubstantiated rant about "food snobs". P.S. I'm not saying "food snobs" don't exist, they certainly do. But the author picked the wrong example here !
  • tallanvor 4y ago
    The author didn't pick the wrong example here. Pre-minced garlic is good enough for most people. The oil is a neutral flavor, and the small amount of salt isn't going to affect the taste at the end. --Once it's been cooked, the difference is indistinguishable to all but a few super tasters. Most home cooks don't want to grind all their spices fresh, and even most professionals probably don't, for example try to grind their own cinnamon. The pre-ground stuff is good enough, especially if you pay attention to use-by dates (which are still going to be pretty conservative). It absolutely is food snobbery to suggest that if you use pre-minced garlic or pre-ground spices that you aren't a real cook, or that you should just leave the ingredients out if you can't use fresh versions for whatever reason (health, time, or even just laziness).
• t43562 4y ago
  My impression is that you only get this nonsense when people are being competitive about cooking rather than actually caring about eating nice food. There are shortcuts that work and shortcuts that don't work so well and IMO it's an incredible waste of time to put effort into something that doesn't make a difference. FWIW my best tricks (which I learned from other people): 1 - to make pancakes (English style i.e. thin) use self raising flour anyhow because it cooks through better. 1 egg per 100g flour and at least 125% liquid to flour ratio. If you want to be fancy you can grind up oats and substitute them for about 40% of the flour and there's a minor improvement in taste and I feel it's very slightly healthier perhaps. 2 - Worcestershire sauce makes mince dishes better - e.g bolognaise or the filling for Shepherds pie. With it, you can stick to very basic ingredients and still get a good result (e.g. fried onions and ketchup/tomato paste).
  • jerkstate 4y ago
    Worcestershire sauce is my secret weapon in burgers, chili, and other meals with ground red meat! such great umami flavor!
    • skyyler 4y ago
      For things that the spicy undertones wouldn't work well with, consider trying fish sauce. It's even more intense with the umami boosting ability. It's practically liquid MSG. I recommend Red Boat 40°N to people unfamiliar with it as an ingredient, it's basically "first press" and has a clean and pure flavour. Cheaper fish sauces can be very fishy. Good fish sauce won't make the final dish taste fishy unless you use an extreme amount.
      • jandrese 4y ago
        Do you have a good fish sauce brand? I tried one once and even a couple of drops in a sauce I was preparing managed to make the entire house smell like Poseidon's week old gym socks.
        • skyyler 4y ago
• jerkstate 4y ago
  pre-minced garlic in a jar does lose some flavor and freshness, so I've taken to buying a big bag of garlic every few months, skinning it (break heads down to cloves, cut the ends off each clove, put it in a sealed metal container like two bowls pressed together, and shake your ass off). Then you mince it (like, in a food processor) and freeze it flat in a sandwich bag. When the bag has been in the freezer for about half an hour, score it with the back of a knife, so each "cube" is about the size of about half a clove of garlic. Then you can break off a few pieces for each recipe. The benefit of this method versus pre-frozen mince is you can be sure there's no filler. Not that I would turn my nose up at a home-cooked meal with pre-minced garlic, but this is the method I learned from an aged family member.
• tpoacher 4y ago
  Yeah I don't disagree with the article, but at the same time I can't shake that vibe that the author is also guilty of precisely the same crime they're finger-wagging about: shaming other people for their passions and preferences. It was a nice article, but also left a slightly sour aftertaste; surely you can just say "actually prepeeled garlic has its own set of benefits which you may not have thought of, here is a nice article pointing some out" and leave it at that, without going for the "you ableist scum" narrative to get the point across. I like peeling garlic when I cook. The implication that I henceforth have to consider myself posh privileged ableist scum whenever I peel garlic is not something I particularly cared for to be honest.
  • gonzo41 4y ago
    I've recovered from serious injuries before, mostly broken bones, but there's been some nerve stuff in there as well. I think the article is more to say something is better than nothing. To me it seems like a person finding a way to live like themselves and embracing the fact that they are becoming their own source of influence. Anyway, sometimes I'm so tired from the programming mines that heating up a frozen meal or even driving to pickup take out feels like I've done something.
    • tpoacher 4y ago
      Yeah, I know the feeling. :brohug: I find the secret is small victories. Or, probably part of the secret anyway. :)
• subpixel 4y ago
  I make pizza using a frozen Newman’s cheese pie which I then top with prosciutto, shredded sharp white cheddar, pesto, thinly sliced onion, and sometimes pickled jalapeños. Then I cook it on a pizza steel at 420 degrees until it’s just shy of burnt. It’s amazing. I’ve made pizza professionally (long story) and I sometimes make my own dough and sauce etc and the result is great - but not _better_ than the above.
  • Jedd 4y ago
    > ... on a pizza steel at 420 degrees ... 95% of the world uses Celsius, and when I fire my pizza oven up it's in the 400-450 Celsius range, where I can approach proper Napoli style pizzas, using a 24-30 hour prep poolish dough base. Are you talking Celsius or the archaic Fahrenheit? If the former, then I'd love to know more about 'professional' pizzas not coming close to store-bought ready-made bases with some toppings.
    • subpixel 4y ago
      > proper Napoli style That is but one style of pizza, by no means the best, and certainly not what you make with a frozen grocery-store cheese puck at 420degF. My results resemble (but exceed!) bar pies: https://www.pmq.com/colony-grill/ https://www.pmq.com/colony-grill/
      • Jedd 4y ago
        Today I've learned about puck cheese, thanks. It sounds .. interesting. I've rented in places with residential-grade ovens that have reached 250C, which have been excellent for pizzas, but typically I've had them max out around 220, where it's more challenging to get a great result. The 'razer thin' (seemingly zero crust, certainly no edge gradient) on that link you sent would probably be easier to replicate in a residential oven - especially with a steel. (I've not used one of those, only stones.)
    • anthonypasq 4y ago
      Neapolitan pizza is the worst type of pizza
• mihaic 4y ago
  I'd venture to say that internet food snobs have also ruined proper food lessons. Snobbery can be good or bad. At its best, it allows people to learn from the experience of others and protects against mistakes that aren't bad for the individual but bad for the overall system. But snobs for the sake of signaling status not only make everyone more unhappy, they also ruin the concept that experts actually exist. The right thing is almost never the opposite of the wrong thing.
• jcranberry 4y ago
  Thank you for the article, although I don't tend to be too disparaging about these types of ingredients (I think) it's always a good reminder to be open minded and aware that you don't know others situations. And on top of that there's absolutely nothing wrong with making tradeoffs for convenience...and its also not necessarily good to take what people claim are tradeoffs as absolute truth.
• michaelcampbell 4y ago
  > They’re dismissing those of us with disabilities. Or, really, just those of us who are "not them". Elitism, cultism, gatekeeping etc. exists in all realms and hobbies.
• cosmiccatnap 4y ago
  Food and your personal desire to cook and eat it is so so subjective that the idea that anyone can try and say you are doing something wrong that you have done before and enjoy...well it's silly. The entire industry around cooking and especially the glorification of shows like hells kitchen is to the detriment of food everywhere. You might as well try to critique how someone hugs their wife.
• ilitirit 4y ago
  I've always thought that the reason to avoid garlic-in-a-jar-of-oil was because of botulism: https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/Can-you-get-botulism-from-garlic-in-oil https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/Can-you-get-botulism-from-gar...
  • notriddle 4y ago
    Keep it in the fridge.
    • gnicholas 4y ago
      FYI, that only works for up to a week. > stored in the refrigerator at 40 °F or lower for no more than 7 days At temperatures above 38°, the toxin can be produced, and no amount of cooking will make it safe to eat.
  • gnicholas 4y ago
    The major concern is with homemade garlic-in-oil. Garlic tends to have botulism bacteria, but they can't thrive in an aerobic environment. When you put it in oil, it will thrive (even when refrigerated) and produce the toxin, which is deadly. The only way to kill the bacteria is to cook it at an extremely high temperature/pressure, which I believe cannot be created by home cooks (certainly not on the stove). Store-bought garlic jars are treated to be safe, though I don't know if they can become contaminated when you open them and leave them out on the counter. My guess is this is probably not common, otherwise it would happen with all sorts of food that is stored in oil and kept for long periods of time in the fridge.
• taylodl 4y ago
  You opened up a jar of object-oriented programming to make your stir fry and your roommate sneered that you hadn't used functional programming. After doing some reading online you come to the conclusion that real programmers don't use object-oriented programming, they only use fresh, all-natural functions and monads! Every human endeavor, even the supposedly logical ones, have their idiosyncrasies.
• ufmace 4y ago
  The trick of this person's story IMO isn't so much that cooking snobs are bad or that any way of cooking is good or bad. It's that the author wants to be a cooking snob themselves. They're upset that the made-up qualifications of being a cooking snob don't accommodate their disabilities. Okay yeah that's unfair, but the whole point of snobbery is to be unfair to people and consider yourself better than them. You don't have a lot of credibility if you want to be a snob yourself but are upset that you can't meet the qualifications. Instead of shaming the snob group for not accommodating you, let go of your desire to be a snob yourself. Once you do that, their opinions don't matter to you anymore and you aren't constantly searching for signs that some random stranger approves or doesn't approve of how you cook, and sometimes perceiving them even when they aren't there. Cook however you damn well feel like. Your food tasting good to you and whoever else you're feeding is all that matters, not the opinions of internet strangers on Twitter about how you did it. Once you really understand things and let go, you can see snobbery as kind of a joke, a fun game to play, instead of something super serious and important. I think all of the people who have strong opinions on, say, Vi vs Emacs are older and mature enough to not take it too seriously anymore, so any "flamewars" about it nowadays feel more like people joking around than an actual battle.
  • germanjoey 4y ago
    Great post; this is how I felt about it too.
  • DreamFlasher 4y ago
    Exactly this! When I read it my first thought was: Wow in the US they even have minced garlic, isn't that amazing. I wish we had that in Germany. I hate peeling garlic, the fingers smell, why would I ever do that again if I don't need to?
    • AlecSchueler 4y ago
      Slightly crush it with a knife before you peel and the skin will slide right off.
      • 4y ago
• throw0101a 4y ago
  America's Test Kitchen recently released a review video "The Best Substitutes for Fresh Garlic": * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anbWTqJMQC8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anbWTqJMQC8 Also, from a few years ago, "The Science of Garlic and How to Make the Best Garlic Bread" with Dan Souza in their 'science-y series': * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxM3tZkwNKA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxM3tZkwNKA
• exabrial 4y ago
  * Don't toast a fresh bagel * Don't chill red wine * blah blah Fuck the snobs. Don't let an asshole ruin what you brings you a little enjoyment. If you think plain yellow mustard on your well done steak tastes like heaven then by all means have at it. My only advice would be to occasionally try something new, withstanding the "avoid assholes" part.
• nobody9999 4y ago
  If you think jarred garlic isn't good, then don't use it. I had this conversation with my sister in-law a few months back. She prefers the fresh stuff -- and so do I. She said she would never do use jarred garlic and suggested various tools to mince/crush fresh garlic. I thanked her for her advice and (possibly) said "Good. More for me." I use jarred garlic (a lot!) and buy it in quart (~900ml) containers. I don't have the physical issues the author of TFA has, I just have better things to do (and better things to spend my money on -- fresh garlic is significantly more expensive) than minced (or chopped) garlic when I'm cooking. As for the ableist angle, I'm not convinced. Because it's not really about not considering what others can/cannot do. Rather, it's about interacting with strangers online. For some reason, some (many?) people think it's normal and fine to rip into people they don't know online -- something most of those folks wouldn't dream of doing IRL. Don't like pre-minced garlic? Don't use it. We have (or at least we used to) have a word (actually, a bunch of them) for people who berate others for doing something they don't prefer: Jerk, asshole, busybody, obnoxious fuck, etc., etc., etc. I understand why that upsets people -- it annoys the hell out of me too. And well it should. But as I said, I'm not buying that it's somehow "ableist," in that I'm sure that most folks don't know (or care, for that matter) that the author of TFA has a physical issue that limits what she can do. Rather, they just take their own preferences (and in some cases, they may actually be "better" for some values of that word) and generalize their use case and preferences as "the right way. the only way." Which is ridiculous on its face. This isn't really about garlic. Or about ableism (which exists and can absolutely be an issue). It's about rude, obnoxious jerks who take their trained-in prejudices for the laws of nature. Unfortunately, many folks don't feel comfortable calling others out for their asshattery and instead internalize the abuse (and that's what it is) they've been subjected to. And more's the pity. Edit: Improved my prose.
  • toddmatthews 4y ago
    my mom says, "don't yuck my yum"
    • gwill 4y ago
      my family applies this to much more than food. helps make me less judgmental.
• cinntaile 4y ago
  TIL jarred garlic exists. I don't think I have ever seen that in a store here (EU country), what I have seen is dried, powdered garlic. I'll try and find this next time I'm in a store.
  • jandrese 4y ago
    I like getting peeled whole cloves. Peeling is the time consuming part of garlic prep and alternatives like smashing the heads to extract the garlic always end up with bits of skin still attached when I've tried it. Mincing already peeled cloves is no trouble at all.
• browningstreet 4y ago
  In general, better to cook at home than eat out, from a health and calorie perspective.
• jamal-kumar 4y ago
  It's mixed in with the preservative tastes of vinegar and benzoates. From a culinary perspective, hard pass based on that alone, unless that's a desirable trade-off for whatever your use cases are. The difference is simply extremely palpable.
  • asdajksah2123 4y ago
    And in many cases it can make a huge difference even outside of taste. For example, using pre-shredded cheese on your pizza? It will never melt and become gooey the way a low moisture block of mozzarella you've shredded yourself will. Because, as it becomes obvious once you learn about it, in order to prevent that shredded mozzarella from becoming just a clump of cheese, which is exactly what would happen considering the temperature differences it goes through and all sorts of crushing pressures that are applied on it until it makes it to your fridge. The pre-minced garlic needs all sorts of preservatives that will impart a significant flavor to preserve it and prevent it from browning. Presliced fruit is almost always gonna be covered in something to prevent it from spoiling. Sugar syrup might be the least offensive, but then it becomes less of a fruit serving than a sugar serving. There are good convenience foods you can use. Frozen foods are usually pretty high quality. The texture might not work for certain applications, but they are usually flash frozen when they are at the peak of the season and so really good when they're used. In fact, stuff like canned tomatoes are often better than their "fresh" counterparts during the off-season. Canned foods can also be excellent. No one sneers at people for using those, and in fact, most good chefs (and most of hte TV chefs as well) will recommend using those. Heck, even frozen sliced and peeled vegetables. But some convenience foods are simply not good if you are capable of doing without. Processed garlic is usually one of those.
    • jamal-kumar 4y ago
      Yeah, it's 100% better to use fresh ingredients where possible and just do the processing right in the kitchen. I just kind of figure the person who wrote this article could really benefit from a couple of different easy to use food processors if their hand is messed up. There's a ton of great information on the internet that I'm going to keep in mind in case I ever get gravely injured: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cooking+with+one+arm https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cooking+with+on...
• pessimizer 4y ago
  There's nothing that will cause you to mistake classism for ableism more than being upper-class and disabled. Is it ableism if you call a person lazy whose legs work perfectly well who insists on being pushed around in a wheelchair all day? Does it mean that you also look down on people who don't have the use of their legs or the strength to walk for using a wheelchair? Even the pressure is coming from class norms. Normal people and normal cooks aren't becoming depressed because chef-influencers look down on pre-minced garlic. Also, the packaging is a problem. The reason for all of this prepackaged stuff is because the margins are so high on it, not because grocers are fighting for the disabled. They'd love for us all to be living from meal kits.
  • crooked-v 4y ago
    As someone who's a decent cook but who has never actually enjoyed the fine details of cooking from scratch, I would be content to pay for that margin... but the sheer amount of packaging waste in meal kits and most prepackaged food has increasingly driven me to keep using fresh ingredients from a local grocery. Any company that can come up with some sort of happy medium there will probably get my business forever.
• yding 4y ago
  Unless you're eating it raw, there's no problem with minced garlic or prepeeled garlic. Yes, it has slightly less flavor, but you can just add more of it if you want.
• cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  We have ~4000 heads of garlic in the ground at our little farm here, and are in our third year of selling garlic as a business. But we still usually have a couple jars of store-bought pre-minced stuff in the cupboard. It comes in handy. Blanket prohibitions and snobbery are just stupid.
• pugworthy 4y ago
  For me the decision is based on whether the option has wasteful packaging or not. Garlic in a jar? No problem. Mushrooms pre-sliced in a plastic package, no way Jose. Gimme those ones I picked out myself and put into a paper bag.
  • Eric_WVGG 4y ago
    I'm a bit of a food snob and recently bought a jar of minced-in-oil-garlic… got tired of finding green sprouts in freshly purchased bulbs (it's overripe, toss it). I give up.
• webmobdev 4y ago
  There's nothing snobbish about the claim that food cooked with fresh ingredients are more flavourful and nutritious. Nobody can also deny that processed foods save a lot of cooking time. But they are often unhealthier (in the long term) because of all the salt, sugar, artificial flavours and preservatives that are used in it. And they are often always costlier. It's the last 2 things that really irk me - I recently bought some cocoa powder, and was hard-pressed to find any brand selling it without artificial cocoa flavouring. These cheap artificial flavourings allow the processed food industry to reduce or substitute the original ingredient with a cheaper alternative, while ensuring the artificial flavouring doesn't let us know the difference. This is one of the major reasons people who really love cooking avoid processed foods, and often prefer fresh ingredients. All that said, people like the author should learn to care less about the unimportant / irrelevant opinions of others, especially strangers. And learn to diplomatically handle such opinions. (After all, pride and snobbery does creep in when we learn a skill that we enjoy and become better at. I confess that I am an occasional snob too since I learned cooking! As is the author, even if she doesn't realise it ...).
• krzyk 4y ago
  I'm astonished that something like jarred garlic exists. I have seen powdered garlic, but jarred wasn't something I remember seeing in Poland. We always have source of 'normal' garlic. Is it popular in other countries?
• travisgriggs 4y ago
  - In defense of late binding: How static type zealots almost ruined my love of programming - In defense of garbage collection: how explicit memory pedantists almost ruined my joy of programming - In defense of files: how everything-is-an-SQL-table almost ruined my joy of programming …
  • skyyler 4y ago
    I'd buy this if everything-is-an-SQL-table was a near-universal opinion online. Or if any of those fringe zealot opinions were anywhere near as commonplace as the jarlic hate is. Is there some hive of schizo-DBAs that I don't know about?
• whateveracct 4y ago
  I always have minced garlic on-hand. You never know when you'll open up a fresh bulb only for it to be a dud. But I also drink Kroger-brand instant coffee happily.
• Cupertino95014 4y ago
  You can use jarred garlic all you like. If someone gives you shit, tell them GFY. I use it once in a while, e.g. for marinades. One method of crushing that I don't see here: if you have drinking glasses with heavy glass bottoms (most of them, from what I can tell), you can just smash the clove with that. Peel the skin, then smash the clove again. Now it might be usable as is, but if not, you can chop it pretty easily. I've never broken a glass that way.
  • skyyler 4y ago
    I greatly dislike the idea of using a glass object as a hammer. The side of a knife works very well, not sure why it's not universal...
    • Cupertino95014 4y ago
      Okey dokey, then. You don't have to do it.
• mirekrusin 4y ago
  The time taken to write the article must be orders of magnitude more than human being needs to spend on peeling and squeezing garlic in their lifetime.
• Tagbert 4y ago
  We’ve been using the Dorot Gardens crushed garlic. It is crushed and pressed into a tray with little cubic depressions to hold the garlic and then frozen. It’s like tiny garlic ice cubes. We get them at Trader Joe’s. Each cube packs a wallop of garlic flavor and is indistinguishable from crushed fresh. The melt easily in some hot pasta or when sautéing vegetables. My husband still wants to use fresh garlic but it takes enough extra time that we don’t. These garlic cubes are ways ready to use and it makes a big difference.
  • Groxx 4y ago
    I've largely converted to frozen too I think. Getting rid of that always-slightly-present jarred-flavor-weirdness is nice, the cost is more than close enough to not care, and it lasts practically forever because it's frozen. Fresh garlic is such a pain to deal with, the minor flavor improvement is just nowhere near worth the increase in effort, or ingredient loss due to it growing old before use.
  • anchochilis 4y ago
    I'm obsessed with the stuff! The crushed ginger is also excellent for curries and stir -fries.
• thekingofrome 4y ago
  The author's main problem is her sensitivity, not a culture of "ableist" cooks. Nobody should be this concerned with how random internet users care about their method of preparing garlic. And of course YouTube cooks promote the "best" method even when it might be unnecessarily time consuming - because they are cooking to make a nice video, not a time efficient meal. The part about her causing herself pain by mincing garlic shows well how she is too worried about other people's opinions (who aren't even present when she does it) over factors that influence her health.
  • robonerd 4y ago
    Sensitivity really is the problem. Sometimes people mock me for drinking instant coffee. Instead of letting that hurt my feelings, I laugh in their face and ask if they're volunteering to make coffee for me.
    • nightski 4y ago
      A pour over coffee only takes a few minutes to make. I can't imagine you are saving much time in this case, and the quality difference is substantial. But I'm not judging you, I know people that just like instant coffee better.
      • robonerd 4y ago
        A scoop of instant coffee in a mug and 60 seconds in the microwave is good enough for me. Coffee is a drug delivery mechanism to me; I drink it when I don't have caffeine pills handy.
        • iakov 4y ago
          Damn, this is the most unrefined way of preparing coffee that I've heard of. I have cut down on caffeine a lot a few years ago, but I still enjoy the ritual of brewing coffee in a espresso machine or in chemex. Most of the time it's decaf, too.
      • madmax108 4y ago
• aaron695 4y ago
• mywittyname 4y ago
  Elitism is cooking is why I rarely engage with people about it. I violate a lot of culinary "rules" because I just don't like it that way. It is kind of deflating to be publicly ridiculed as being ignorant or naive because you use iodize salt, you boil rice like people make spaghetti, you think cast iron sucks, you like drip brew coffee best, or you use flour slurries to thicken soups (I guess some people assume this only works with corn starch). Fuck'm I use the garlic paste that I find in the Indian sections of the grocery. It's not the best for dishes with raw garlic, like aioli because it's too spicy, but in cooked dishes, it tastes like garlic.
  • pteraspidomorph 4y ago
    I hate garlic and remove it from every recipe, you should see how much hatred that has garnered me over the years.
    • giardini 4y ago
      Now this is the perfect scenario for bringing a packet or two of garlic salt to the dinner party! Everybody's happy!
      • pteraspidomorph 4y ago
        To be clear, people who eat my cooking enjoy it. I'm a good cook (or so I'm told). It's the food snobs who weren't even there who get offended on principle! But if you really need everything to taste like garlic I wouldn't mind you adding your own at all ;)
  • AdamJacobMuller 4y ago
    The garlic paste in tubes? Works great. I have a stack of those from Aldi, they make other kinds too, Ginger and a few others. Do I buy and use fresh garlic too? Yes, sometimes, but, if I just want some minced garlic for some dish, it's perfectly fine.
    • 4y ago
• smm11 4y ago
  I eat as much like it's 1930 as possible, but have no issue with garlic in a jar, as right now it's a 'thing' and quite versatile. This, too, will pass though and I'll be back to real garlic soon enough.
• bombcar 4y ago
  Snobs have always existed, and they love to hate on things the "common man" likes. But McDonalds and Budweiser continue to make millions, so it's pretty obvious that the snobs are in the minority.
• tonymet 4y ago
  The title should be reworded "How my reaction to criticism online almost ruined my love of cooking". We have no control over the outside world, but we do have control over our reaction to it.
• anm89 4y ago
  Step 1: Invent strawman about how the cruel world is mocking you for using the wrong food products whereas absolutely nobody actually cares. Step 2: Write article demonstrating your deep bravery in using commercial food products that huge numbers of people use. What a real life super hero. I hope one day I will have the emotional fortitude and depth of character to open a jar of garlic.
• dekhn 4y ago
  To me the delivery mechanism of the stored garlic is not that important as long as it's not stale or oxidized. really gross. I also know from talking to most people that what smells bad in garlic to me smells fine to them.
• France_is_bacon 4y ago
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• AlbertCory 4y ago
  Funny how an article about jarred garlic & ableism quickly devolves into a discussion of making coffee. My friend Jerry & I are preparing a series of articles testing whether coffee drinkers (and especially, coffee snobs) can actually taste the difference between the outputs of various choices in coffee brewing. I would think the same technique would shut up some of the cooking snobs about other things: can you taste the difference between two identical dishes, one made with freshly chopped garlic and the other with jarred? (where the garlic is a fairly small component in the dish rather than a main actor, e.g. garlic bread?)
• loufe 4y ago
  If the author is here, please look into getting a first rib resection for your TOS. I had my right side done in January and the other will follow in October. My symptoms (and risk of a pulmonary embolism) have disappeared. Check if yours is just nervous or also vascular/arterial and if there's an extra rib or your shoulders are just oddly formed inside like mine. If you can, find a surgeon who specializes in it to avoid them redoing all the scans. It may change your life.
• lumberjack24 4y ago
  I’m 28 y.o and this is the first time I hear about garlic in a jar. U.S.A never ceases to amaze me.
• anchochilis 4y ago
  I always resisted garlic in a tube or jar because it tasted a little off to me. (And, sure, maybe because I was a bit snobby.) But my supermarket started stocking Doro frozen minced garlic (and ginger!) and it's a game changer. Tastes the same to me, and so much easier. Haven't bought a head of garlic in months.
• pwndByDeath 4y ago
  I recall a documentary on where this peeled garlic comes from. It involved prison labor in China, the chemistry of the garlic disolves finger nails, and I believe they would bite the ends off.
• guggle 4y ago
  TIL "pre-sliced mushrooms" is a thing.
• geon 4y ago
  I like to make burgers. Mostly, I have used just salt and pepper for seasoning, but sometimes also onion and paprika powder. Then I realized the cheap “grill spice mix” contains exactly that. Why not just use that? It is very convenient to only have to shake one can instead of 4.
• mediumsmart 4y ago