Is there such a thing as too much garlic?

last updated 8 January 2015

Italy

When will Italians admit that garlic stinks? said TV executive Carlo Rossella in the Rome Il Foglio. There’s nothing worse than people breathing their noxious fumes at me after a garlic-laden lunch. I can’t stand eating the stuff, either—it gives me indigestion, and I “avoid it like a vampire.” So here’s my suggestion: Let’s ban the beastly bulb from restaurants. I already have a list of forward-thinking restaurants across Italy, where chefs who feel as I do have “outlawed it in their kitchens.” It’s time to take a stand for fresh breath.

Bite your tongue, said Andrea Ghiselli in the Rome Il Velino. Without garlic, Italian cooking wouldn’t be Italian. The range of flavors from garlic—from spicy-sharp when it’s fried to smoky-sweet when it’s roasted—are impossible to replicate with any other ingredient. And its health benefits are considerable. Not only does it have antibiotic and antioxidant properties, but it also prevents strokes and heart disease. Garlic is “as integral to our diet as wine and olives.”

Yet eschewing garlic has suddenly become trendy, said Mariolina Iossa in the Milan Corriere della Sera. Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi says he detests it, and he’s been known to hand out breath mints to any official in his Forza party who smells. And top chef Filippo La Mantia hardly ever serves a dish with garlic at his newest restaurant, which may explain why the place has become the hottest scene in Rome, drawing politicians, famous actors, and business magnates. Still, very few chefs have undergone this conversion—and none of them is in Sicily, where the plant originated. There, garlic shines in every course but dessert.