You read it right. To me garlic is one of the most indispensable spices for cooking. Just sprinkle some finely chopped garlic into your dish, it will work wonders. It can turn some bland, not so edible dish (to those who has picky taste buds) into some not-so-perfect-but-still-edible food.

I like to add garlic in every dish that I cook, be it salad (yes it tastes great in salad dressing!), chop suey or name-whatever-dish-you-like-except-dessert.
If there isn’t any garlic in the main dish, I will chop some garlic and soak’em in soy or chili sauce for dipping my food. If I’m too lazy to dirty the chopping board just to chop one clove of garlic, there’s always the ready made chili sauce with garlic in my fridge as stand by. You see, my culinary tastes and experiences evolve mostly around this versatile plant.

Being a Malaysian Chinese, having garlic in almost every meal is just as natural as breathing. However after spending some time in Germany, I’ve come across some Europeans, who just can’t stand the smell of garlic.

Let me recall some of the ‘incidents’ that I’ve encountered so far:
1. My previous landlord complained that I cooked too much garlic because the smell seemed to be driving him crazy. Well, I guess the combination of fried garlic-ginger-dried prawns-with-chillies was just too much for European noses . I had too admit that when the smoke rise from the wok, it can be too much for sensitive nose.

2. My colleagues all seem to ‘know’ whether I had eaten garlic for dinner the night before. The Europeans all seem to have this ‘thing’ about garlic. Either they love it or they hate it. While I was discussing something with a colleague the other day, he suddenly interrupted me and asked ”Have you eaten garlic yesterday?” Well, he didn’t sound accusing but asked in a friendly way. Then he rushed off to his desk and brought me some chewing gum . I wonder whether garlic really has such a strong aftermath odor?

3. Thorsten’s mum asked him whether I cooked garlic for dinner because his clothes smell of garlic. Thereafter his parents conclude that Asians have a healthy eating habit because they use garlic in their cuisine .

4. My previous house mate, a German girl, told me that she’ll know that I’ll be cooking in the kitchen because the smell permeated the staircase which is outside my apartment!

Well, not all Europeans dislike garlic. I know another German friend, who loves to eat cloves, and cloves of garlic soaked in olive oil. Those are raw garlic but pickled with some spices. Well, although I love garlic, I still couldn’t bring myself to just eat raw garlic without any other food. He told me that it’s one of the way that the Greeks eat their garlic . Interesting.

I have to bear in mind now before I decided to cook some thing with some heavy dose of garlic on whether I’m going to work the next day. Or else I’ll have to have some mints or chewing gum handy to avoid incident nr.2 from happening again.

Hmm……can’t wait for the weekend to arrive because I can use my normal amount of garlic in my chicken rice, or claypot rice or bak kut teh, or nasi lemak again. Sorry peeps .. I’m sure these are normal food for you guys but for me here, I think I’m currently suffering from severe-malaysian-food-deficit-syndrome.