In defence of garlic in a jar

Re:In defence of garlic in a jar by ufmace on Friday July 01, 2022 @09:38AM (#31946176)

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.

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Re:In defence of garlic in a jar by kerblang on Friday July 01, 2022 @07:34PM (#31954421)

I don't see anything in the article that validates labelling the author a snob. They felt bad because a friend looked down on their cooking habits, so they tried to go along, and eventually gave up on it. In fact they decided that snobby attitudes about cooking aren't worth appeasing. You act as if it's your job to tell them as much when that's what the whole article was about.

All you're doing is being an anti-snob snob.

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Re:In defence of garlic in a jar by DreamFlasher on Friday July 01, 2022 @06:00PM (#31953569)

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?

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Re:In defence of garlic in a jar by CobrastanJorji on Friday July 01, 2022 @07:29PM (#31954388)

Minced garlic is wonderful. I keep a big jar of it. Garlic is great. I put a lot of it in my food. A large jar of minced garlic lasts longer than garlic bulbs, it's cheaper than garlic bulbs, and it takes about two seconds to put 4 or 5 cloves of minced garlic into the frying pan. I will occasionally mince fresh garlic by hand when I'm feeling fancy, but for me the jar is way better for all of those times when the garlic isn't really the main focus of the dish, which is a lot of the time.

That said, it does taste a little different than fresh garlic. If I were trying to impress or was trying to make something garlicky stand out and taste "correct," I'd use the real stuff.

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Re:In defence of garlic in a jar by commenter1234 on Friday July 01, 2022 @06:34PM (#31953885)

Of course depends on where you live but if you have a South Asian grocery store (or a broader Asian one that stocks south Asian ingredients) in any way accessible to you, they normally stock jars of garlic paste/minced garlic (and ginger+garlic paste).

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Re:In defence of garlic in a jar by AlecSchueler on Friday July 01, 2022 @06:16PM (#31953725)

Slightly crush it with a knife before you peel and the skin will slide right off.

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Re:In defence of garlic in a jar by woofyman on Friday July 01, 2022 @06:48PM (#31954013)

I use a silicone tube. Roll the garlic in the tube and it peels the garlic.

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Re:In defence of garlic in a jar by derbOac on Sunday July 03, 2022 @06:47AM (#31966689)

When we started dating my wife used jarred minced garlic because it was easier.

It's ok I guess?

It has a kind of acrid quality, slightly too sharp for my tastes compared to ideal.

Having said that, I've had "fresh" garlic that is worse — usually older — so I can't say its my least favorite option. There's people I know who use dried garlic when I think jarred garlic would be much better.

The only time I think I'd be a little wary of it is with pesto or something like that. Maybe even then it would be good.

Everything has its place.

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Re:In defence of garlic in a jar by ska on Friday July 01, 2022 @07:26PM (#31954359)

Perhaps somewhere that carries asian groceries?

Peeled garlic in a jar (or especially minced) really isn't the same as what you will get doing it by hand, whether or not this matters enough to you to not use it you'll have to try, I guess.

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Re:In defence of garlic in a jar by coffeefirst on Saturday July 02, 2022 @11:24AM (#31959809)

Right. The point of the cookbooks and the shows is to teach (and be entertaining). You don't need to teach anyone to spoon garlic out of a jar, so they're doing everything from scratch using fresh local ingredients that you might not even have access to.

This is fine; the entire tradition of cooking is about adapting to your available resources and creativity.

Some people take this way too seriously. The author and his friend in the opening anecdote appear to have fallen into that trap.

I use fresh garlic, and minced garlic, and (gasp) garlic powder. In fact, I think garlic powder is a better tool for some jobs. Fight me! (I mean, don't actually fight me, it's just garlic.)

One caveat: if anyone is curious, seriously try fresh lemons. Its such a different ingredient than the bottled stuff they should not go by the same name, and lemons keep well in the fridge.

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Re:In defence of garlic in a jar by Handytinge on Wednesday July 13, 2022 @02:43PM (#32087034)

I'm curious. what's with the lemon juice where you are?

In Australia, the supermarket brand Lemon juice has 3 ingredients:

> Reconstituted Lemon Juice (99.9%), Acidity Regulator (Ascorbic Acid), Natural Flavour, Preservative (223)

It tastes identical to freshly squeezed lemons.

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Re:In defence of garlic in a jar by germanjoey on Friday July 01, 2022 @02:03PM (#31950291)

Great post; this is how I felt about it too.

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