The point of this blog is to share growing and cooking wisdom. So putting a dumb old pickle at the top doesn’t make sense. Garlic is the complete opposite on many levels and for many reasons.
People eat garlic raw, as a topping, a complex ingredient, and even use the greens in salads and other dishes. Garlic is as complex an ingredient as there is. Plus, it’s SO good for you. There is evidence that fresh garlic, and only fresh garlic, can kill E. coli and antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and Salmonella enteritidis. The active ingredient, allicin, is responsible for the scent of the herb and for its healing properties. Make sure to understand that sometimes researchers come up with these claims based on Petri dish experiments, and results in the human body may differ. Still, these are some of the reasons garlic stuck out to me, design-wise.
Allicin degrades quickly, so uses in medicine are minimal, and aged garlic is essentially useless. Crushed and eaten fresh is best. More information can be found on the National Institute of Health’s Garlic page. But of course, my favorite use is in pickles! And if you didn’t know that, shame on me!
A book I bought called The Spice Companion
So to recap; garlic is exceptionally good and healthy for you, how healthy for you is up for interpretation, and the garlic bulb is a more mature, serious choice than the pickle or cucumber.
What are you putting garlic in? My second favorite use is freshly chopped in spaghetti sauce..
Pickles Of Wisdom 