Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980) - full transcript
Often referred to as a stinking rose, garlic, in its culinary uses, generally evokes a love it or hate it response. Quite often, these responses are on cultural lines, where old world cultures have generally revered it in their cooking, while new world cultures have not. A renaissance of sorts is taking place in the use of garlic in the United States, with more and more immigrants bringing their use of the spice to the country, with more people desiring more spice in their food, with a desire to get back to the land and with the production of plant a large part of the Central California landscape. Many chefs are presented preparing dishes prominently featuring the spice. On the bad side, the association of garlic to bad breath is discussed. On the other side, its purported health benefits are also discussed. Other topics presented include its association to vampirism, and speculation of how people will want their garlic to be presented to them in the future.
My mom used to hate it.
She comes from Columbus, Ohio,
and her parents are from Ireland.
And they, you know -
they didn't touch the stuff.
I don't think -
Garlic isn't a very Irish herb.
I couldn't cook garlic four days
before guests would come over for dinner...
because she said the smell of garlic
would make her guests feel sick.
Eating garlic she thought of
as being offensive.
[ Man ]
It's my favorite song.
♪ Garlic is the spice of life ♪
♪ The spice of life,
the spice of life ♪
♪ Garlic is the spice of life ♪
♪ Add garlic in your life ♪
♪ Garlic is a spice ♪♪
♪♪[ Guitars]
♪♪[Man Singing In Spanish]
♪♪[Fades]
The reason we use
a lot of garlic in our house -
My mother made pasta with gravy
every Thursday, every Sunday...
and my father had to have
a whole head of garlic.
He loved garlic.
We all did in the family.
But he wanted his whole head
for himself.
He liked that. Really.
[ Man ] He would eat it?
Yeah, and if we had a cold or flu...
my mother would make
a chain of garlic, raw garlic.
If our babies had worms,
we'd make a chain of raw garlic...
so they'd let the worms out.
[ Rose ]
You'd buy 'em in braids.
—You know, the braids?
—[ Man ] Yeah.
Them days, you know,
we had no Frigidaire.
We used to hang them on the wall,
in the kitchen, in the porch, in the basement.
Everything my mother cooked
had garlic in it...
because she knew my father liked it.
Even the fish.
He was a fish man.
He'd bring the fish, we'd boil the fish
or we'd bake the fish...
or we'd make a stew with the fish.
We had to put garlic.
In everything Mama cooked, garlic.
This was an Italian lady
and she always cooked with garlic.
And I noticed that, uh...
they never did have any blood pressure
problems, no heart attacks.
And I think medical science
will tell you...
that using garlic is beneficial for you...
so far as your heart
and your pressure is concerned.
[ George ]
I learned on the barbecue that -
Where I got my recipe from,
this fella, he used garlic...
so I continued to use it.
[ Woman]
♪ I'm sellin' it cheap ♪
♪ 'Cause I got good stuff♪
♪ And if you try one time ♪
♪ You can’t get enough ♪
♪ I'm talkin' 'bout barbecue ♪
♪ Only thing I sell♪
♪ And if you want my meat♪
♪ You can come to my house at 12:00 ♪
♪ Now, some like it hot♪
♪ Some like it cold ♪
♪ Some take it any ♪
♪ Way it's sold ♪
♪ I'm talkin' 'bout barbecue ♪
♪ Only thing I crave ♪
♪ And that good—doin' meat♪
♪ Goin' to take me to my grave ♪♪
[ Speaking Spanish ]
[ Woman ]
[ Woman ]
[ Woman ]
[ Conversation Continues In Spanish ]
[ Woman ]
[ Man Speaking Spanish ]
[ Woman ]
[ Speaking Spanish ]
—♪♪ [ Guitars: Flamenco ]
—[ Men Shouting ]
♪♪ [ Continues ]
[ Guests Laughing ]
♪♪ [ Spanish ]
♪♪ [ Continues In Spanish ]
[ Man ] In Europe they laugh at Americans
who are into garlic...
because they've been into garlic
for thousands of years.
You know, it's the American
Puritan Anglo thing...
that has held garlic addiction down
until very recently.
And now all the old structures...
that have held America together...
are falling apart -
politically, religious—wise.
In every category everything's falling apart...
and people are looking
to the old ways...
the traditional folk,
basic historical roots...
of what it is to be a human being...
and garlic figures
very substantially in that.
Garlic is one of the foods,
the nourishments, the medicines...
that has been at
the very foundations of civilization.
[ Cheering, Applause ]
[ Woman Laughing ]
[ Sows Snorting ]
—[ Woman Laughing ]
—[ Man ] Beautiful.
[ Woman]
I think if we plumb deeply here...
we would discover the garlic secrets...
as to why it appeals to people
who are really passionate about life...
and not, um, imprinted...
with too much civilized behavior.
[ Sow Snorting ]
[ Piglets Squealing ]
[ Woman]
There are people that just plain love it...
for all of its curative properties...
and, uh, Lord knows what else -
mystical.
And then there are people that find it
an essential ingredient to good cooking.
And then there are the people
that grow it.
It has some very, uh, special...
enticing properties.
♪♪[Fiddle, Guitars, Accordion: Cajun]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪[Fades]
[ Woman]
It's something that can't be ignored.
You either like it or you don't like it...
and - and it causes you
to react in some way.
And I love that about food.
I like people to make a response to it.
Whether it's positive or negative,
"I want them to say, That's garlic!"
—[ Woman #2 Laughs]
—You know?
It's really important to me.
And that food does that.
I think that's why we use it so much.
I don't like people to be indifferent
when they eat.
—Can you smell the garlic?
—Yeah! Whoo!
[Man]And there's no doubt
that after you eat a lot of garlic...
you just kind of feel like you're floating.
—You feel ultra confident.
—[Man #2] You do feel kinda light.
[Man] Capable of going out
and whipping your weight in wildcats.
It just makes you feel real good.
It's not like being drunk.
Being drunk is a different kind of euphoria.
Being stoned
is a different kind of euphoria.
A garlic euphoria
is kind of like grounded.
You feel like you've got
both feet planted on the ground.
You're a part of the world,
you're not apart from it, and yet...
you definitely do feel real good.
—[Man] Yes!
♪♪[Fiddle, Guitars, Accordion: Cajun]
♪♪ [ Continues ]
♪♪ [ Man Yells ]
[ Man ]
Hey!
[ Woman] It built up a lot of
anticipation over the year.
People would write in letters and say
they had heard that we had had this event...
and was it really true that we had
every dish with garlic in it?
And what did we cook?
The second year it just seemed like
the natural thing to do again on the 14th of July.
Then there was the third year it happened,
because of great demand again...
and they wanted bigger
and better garlic dishes.
They weren't content with just things
that had a little touch.
I mean, this time they wanted
the whole cloves of garlic.
I mean, they wanted
serious garlic eating.
And in fact, people were disappointed...
because the dishes tasted like
something they could eat at home.
"I don't want to have just pesto.
I want garlic.
You know? Garlic."
♪♪[Mandolins, Guitars:
Swiss—Italian Folk]
[ Harris ] It did seem that
there was a sudden explosion -
exponential explosion
of interest in garlic...
and it had to do with a sort of coming together
of interest in herbalism...
and folk medicine, interest in spices...
interest in European cooking,
Mediterranean cooking...
and the fact that California
is the garlic center...
in terms of production...
of North America...
and probably the greatest
growing region in the world.
So here, all of a sudden,
was Berkeley...
with this flowering of interest
in gourmet cooking.
Here was Berkeley
in the late '60s and early '70s...
into this whole
alternative medicine trip...
this anti—chemical medicine thing.
Here was Berkeley into...
small independent production...
of vegetables...
non herbicides, non pesticides, et cetera...
and all of a sudden
I found myself in the middle of it.
So all of a sudden garlic became
something that triggered my imagination.
It couldn't have been any other food.
That's the amazing thing about garlic.
No other food would sustain
the kind of interest that I had...
and I was amazed to find
how many people...
and how many institutions...
were finding in garlic
something worthy of cult proportion.
And so, I'm a victim of garlic.
[ Man ]
Can I ask you, in Nosferatu...
how come there was no mention of
or allusion to garlic?
[ Werner Herzog ]
It's part of the -the vampire mythology.
I must confess
I have never thought about it.
But the film deviates from the genre
anyway to some extent.
For example, the vampire is, uh...
a very sympathetic human being...
a being who tries to be -
to participate in human things...
like death or love or other things.
But you are right.
There is a lot of references
in Bram Stoker's novel...
about garlic.
Why do you ask this question?
[ Man ] I wasn't just joking about vampires.
I think there are vampires.
They don't suck blood though.
That's just a metaphor.
They, uh - They suck energy.
They're like little vacuums of chill...
and you can - They-
Well, for instance, there was one guy,
I'm sure he's practically a registered vampire.
He was a 17th—century Chinese food snob
named Lee Lee—Wung...
and his specialty
was really bland dishes...
and disapproving of anything with
a very pronounced flavor, very strong flavor.
His idea of a real fancy dish
was plain boiled rice.
Like, you know,
almost like rice porridge.
And the only flavoring
was dew collected from flowers.
And this could only be like wild roses.
Garden roses didn't count.
They weren't any good.
And this guy made a point, boasted of
the fact that he never ate onions or garlic.
And he only ate the tips of chives.
I think we have strict -
This is historical evidence
of a vampire right there.
Can you imagine - Can you imagine
having dinner with this guy?
How about the cloves of garlic
in the sausage that you ate last night?
Well, I'm used to
Polack sausage, you know.
—And it's got lots of garlic in it.
—[ Chuckles ] Yeah.
Then what are you talking about,
you don't like garlic?
I like it if I don't know it's in there.
[ Man In Hat ] The food would not have
tasted the same without that garlic.
—[ Man #2 ] It wouldn't have smelled the same.
—[ Man In Hat ] Garlic provides the bass note.
Garlic provides the bass note.
It's like in a chord, you've gotta
have that good solid bottom.
Well, garlic provides the bottom.
—♪♪[Flamenco]
—Don’t you feel kinda high now?
[Man #2] I must say, it feels good.
I mean, I never ate so much of it.
[ Conversation Continues, Faint]
And the house wine.
[Man In Hat] But wine and garlic
are one of God's great combinations.
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪ [ Shouting In Spanish ]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪[Singing In Spanish]
Coarse grind for the sausage.
♪♪[ Continues]
—¿ Más? ¿ Más?
—Más. Más.
♪♪[Singing In Spanish]
[ Speaking Spanish ]
♪♪[Singing In Spanish]
♪♪ [ Continues In Spanish ]
[ Spanish ]
Más. Más.
—¿ Más?
—Sí.
—Bueno.
—¿ Bueno?
♪♪[Singing In Spanish Continues]
[ Spanish ]
—Anzonini.
—¿ Sí?
[ Speaking Spanish ]
[ Woman ] What happens to the sausage
after it's finished like this?
Okay, then - That's why
these strings are so handy.
We hang 'em over the stove
and they dry for three weeks.
See, we'll hang these up
over the stove...
and they'll be -
[ Sniffs ] beautiful.
[ Man ]
"I love ginger. I love hot pepper.
I love garlic. I love onion.
I love wine. I love jogging.
I love butterfly.
I love galloping under blue sky.
I love chasing wind in sunshine.
I love beauty. I love America."
We put the cottonseed oil first.
That's, uh, over high heat.
When it getting hot, real hot...
then -
[ Sizzling ]
put the chicken.
Stir—fry vigorously.
Stir—fry vigorously...
until the meat becomes white.
Then...
you put the other ingredients in -
bell pepper, carrots, sliced carrots...
and, uh, bamboo shoots.
And put lots of garlic inside,
minced garlic.
The more you put,
the better it tastes.
Now for the soy sauce.
And wine.
—See? [ Chuckles ]
—[ Man ] Great.
♪♪[Mandolins, Guitars:
Swiss—Italian Folk]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪ [ Continues ]
[ Whistling ]
♪♪[Ends]
Hey, what do you kids
think about garlic?
—It's okay.
—It's okay.
It's okay.
—Hey, Matt, come on down.
—What?
I got a guy here
who wants to ask you a question.
Hello. I was gonna ask you
if you had any opinions about garlic.
You know what garlic is?
Mmm, yeah.
Do you like it?
Uh... no.
—Do you like garlic?
—Yeah.
Uh, what kind of food
do you eat it on?
Mmm, garlic bread,
garlic sauce.
—All that kind of junk.
—Great.
Uh, why do you like it?
Because it gives you
a tingly feeling in your mouth.
How 'bout the way garlic smells?
[ Kids ]
Ewwww!
[Announcer]
Fights strong mouth odors.
—♪♪ [ Piano: Notes ]
—I just ate garlic bread.
—Kiss me.
—Garlic?
Come on. Kiss me.
I got the Signal.
Hey. Nice.
[Announcer]
Signal fights strong mouth odors.
Even garlic, even onions.
Gives you fresher, cleaner breath.
Clinical tests prove it.
—A kiss'll prove it.
—Kiss me.
I smell like garlic.
[ Cheering, Applause ]
Most of us, we are from Paris.
We were a group of young friends.
And of course we would search...
for the young ladies of Southern France.
The Arlésienne type -
black hair, black eyes, dark skin.
And we always noticed
that they had a special smell.
And we went further in our studies...
as we became more knowledgeable
of the ladies...
and we found out that not only
they would eat garlic frequently...
but in daytime,
to protect their skin...
they would rub a type of olive oil...
mixed with garlic over their skin.
And this gives them
a beautiful suntan...
where we would get burned all the time.
At evenings we discovered,
when we went to the beaches...
there were thousands of mosquitoes...
and those young ladies
who were rubbed with garlic...
would never get one sting.
And us poor fellows...
somehow, with our shirt off
and something else...
always got thousands of mosquitoes
in our back.
And believe me, we were stinged
for the better of love.
—[ Chattering ]
—Whoo! Whoo!
—You get that?
—Dainty little handfuls!
Get it! Get it!
[ Woman ] Is that wine? White wine?
—[ Woman ] Garlic, right?
—[ Man ] This is garlic.
[ Woman #2 ]
Yay! Hit it with the garlic!
—[ Woman ] What is that white stuff?
—[ Man ] This is Italian marijuana.
The base to all good food.
Without garlic, you don't bring out
the true flavor of the food.
Now some dry oregano...
and some fresh basil...
fresh parsley.
[ Man ]
This is right in our harvest time of garlic.
We're harvesting all the fields.
I just got through my field
yesterday at 12:00.
Just got through harvesting.
Yeah.
—[ Man #2 ] Wow.
—[ Woman ] What do you do?
—What do you do besides cooking?
—I farm.
—[ Woman ] Uh—huh.
—I'm a farmer.
I raise garlic and tomatoes.
Do you have a big farm
or a small farm?
Nah, I have only a small farm.
I got 100 acres.
That's enough.
Marinara sauce.
Let that cook in there a few minutes -
about two minutes - and it's ready.
♪♪[ Upbeat: Man Singing
In Foreign Language]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪ [ Continues ]
♪♪ [ Singing Continues ]
♪♪ [ Continues ]
♪♪ [ Continues ]
[Harris] When Satan walked
from the Garden of Eden...
garlic appeared from the ground
where his left foot rested...
and an onion sprouted at his right foot.
[Man] One of the earliest
and most curious stories about garlic...
is that garlic was one of the foods
of the people who built the pyramids.
On one occasion,
when the garlic supply ran low...
people refused to work.
This may have been
the first recorded strike in history.
Wild varieties of garlic
are found throughout the world.
But garlic as we know it
is called Allium sativum.
It was first cultivated
around 4, 000 years ago...
in the Kyrgyz desert region of Siberia.
From there it traveled through China...
and down the trade routes
to the rest of the world.
[ Woman]
♪ There are spices and vegetables ♪
♪ That you can grow ♪
♪ Some are under the ground,
some grow tall♪
♪ Though they all have their qualities ♪
♪ This you should know ♪
♪ That the garlic is best of them all♪
♪ The Egyptians, Phoenicians,
the Vikings and Greeks ♪
♪ Babylonians, Danes and Chinese ♪
♪ On their voyages
took enough garlic for weeks ♪
♪ And their enemies
died on the breeze ♪♪
[Man] Garlic is the second most
consumed spice in the U. S.A....
second only to black pepper.
Over 150 million pounds of garlic
are grown annually...
in the United States of America...
90% of it in California.
Over two—thirds of the garlic crop...
is dehydrated into flakes,
powders and salts.
However, garlic's curative properties
are greatly diminished...
if it is dehydrated
under intense heat.
Nonetheless,
dogs and cats like garlic so much...
that many brands of pet food...
contain dehydrated garlic.
[ Man ] How come you use garlic salt
instead of real garlic...
in the stuff you cook?
Because it's easier.
It's easier than having to peel garlic.
Cheaper too.
Doesn't it change
the way the food tastes?
No, it sure doesn't.
It doesn't change the taste.
But you know, like, it's modern times.
You like the easiest way out, huh?
If you're only gonna peel
a couple of cloves of garlic...
it doesn't matter how you peel 'em.
But if you're gonna have to peel
40 cloves of garlic for a 40—clove chicken...
or if you're gonna make a lot of garlic bread
and you need a lot of garlic...
uh, the faster methods of peeling garlic
are definitely superior.
Um, I mean, once you get into this...
you can peel garlic fast enough...
that you don't need to use instant garlic.
Instant garlic
isn't really an issue anymore...
because this is
as fast as it needs to be.
And it feels good to do it.
That's the part that's
a little hard to talk about...
without sounding
like a hippie dipshit.
♪♪[Strings, Accordion:
French Folk Tune]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪[Fades]
[Man] Eleanor Roosevelt,
to keep her memory sharp...
ate three cloves of garlic a day
dipped in chocolate.
[ Young Man ]
I started liking garlic...
and then he influenced me some more
when we went to Mexico.
We were there and we started getting
the first symptoms of dysentery.
That means going to the bathroom often
and feeling sick.
So we said, well, starting today
we're gonna eat nine cloves of garlic a day.
So we went down to
the Mexican vending place...
and they sold orange juice...
and we bought some orange juice
and stuck a clove in our mouth...
to chew it up
while we drank the orange juice...
and ate nine cloves a day.
And after that point we didn't catch...
any symptoms of dysentery...
and we had no problems at all.
♪♪[Strings: Instrumental]
♪♪[Man Shouts In Spanish]
♪♪[Man Shouts In Spanish]
♪♪[Instrumental Continues]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪[Fades]
[Man]
In the 1930s...
scientists discovered
that garlic vapor...
produced a full spectrum light...
much like sunlight...
when excited by electric current.
[Harris] The future of garlic
is going to be tricky...
because there are industrial forces...
that want to follow
the convenience food philosophy...
of easy access, easy consumption...
long shelf life.
Garlic will come to you already peeled...
in little cellophane strips.
All you do is break the seal
and pop out the clove.
You're going to find
new techniques in processing...
where they can create a dehydrated product
that you can rehydrate...
and it will be very close
to the real thing.
I like to think that the other force
will win out and that is...
independent, small growers of garlic...
along with larger growers who are aware
that people still want to eat real food...
and that the fun of garlic
is in the peeling of the clove.
It's in the work.
[ Man ] You grow everything
organically here, right?
Uh, yeah, we do -
about 30 acres of row crops,
cool—weather vegetables.
We're on the coast.
It's a very temperate, moderate climate...
but it never gets very hot.
So we grow cool—weather crops.
Garlic we have a little bit of.
Not - It's about -
Only about a half—acre of it this year.
Broccoli, squashes, cucumbers...
potatoes, artichokes.
But as a grower, I enjoy it.
I enjoy the garlic.
It's a different type of crop.
We enjoy all our crops.
They're interesting to watch.
I don't, um -
I'm not a fanatic about garlic...
but I am something of a fanatic...
about getting, uh, really safe...
nontoxic foods to people...
and, uh...
that's really where my orientation is.
There isn't any crop, no matter
how good you thought it was for you...
that if it's grown poorly...
or in a dangerous way...
is gonna be good for you.
People deserve to eat food
that's safe to eat.
[ Woman]♪ Since Biblical times
in all parts of the earth ♪
♪ It has cured countless
sufferings and ills ♪
♪ If we understood
what the garlic is worth ♪
♪ We would throw out
our poisonous pills ♪
[ Women Harmonizing]
♪ In Bulgaria's mountains ♪
♪ And Russia's white plains ♪
♪ People live to 100 years old ♪
♪ For it's juice of the garlic
that runs in their veins ♪
♪ Oh, it's worth twice its weight
in pure gold ♪
♪ With silenium, germanium, allicin too ♪
♪ It can fight off all types of disease ♪
♪ So if you’ve got arthritis, T. B. or the flu ♪
♪ Just say,
"Peel me a garlic clove, please"♪
♪ Plant some cloves in your garden
to keep away worms ♪
♪ And other bad things that kill plants ♪
♪ If you’re one of those people ♪
♪ Concerned about germs ♪
♪ You can drop one or two in your pants ♪
♪ There are spices and vegetables
that you can grow ♪
♪ Some are under the ground,
some grow tall♪
♪ Though they all have their qualities,
this you should know ♪
♪ That the garlic is best of them all♪♪
♪♪[Mariachi]
♪♪[ Continues,
Men Singing In Spanish]
[Applause]
♪♪[Mariachi Continues]
♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey, hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey ♪
♪♪[Ends]
♪♪[Fiddles, Guitars: Upbeat Folk]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪[Fades]
[Rustling, Garlic Heads
Landing In Bucket]
♪♪[Fiddles, Guitars: Cajun]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪ Yeah ♪
♪♪[Man Singing In Cajun French]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪ Ohh ♪
♪♪[ Continues]
♪ Yeah ♪
♪♪[Man Singing In Cajun French]
♪ Ohh ♪
♪♪[Ends]
[Applause]
She comes from Columbus, Ohio,
and her parents are from Ireland.
And they, you know -
they didn't touch the stuff.
I don't think -
Garlic isn't a very Irish herb.
I couldn't cook garlic four days
before guests would come over for dinner...
because she said the smell of garlic
would make her guests feel sick.
Eating garlic she thought of
as being offensive.
[ Man ]
It's my favorite song.
♪ Garlic is the spice of life ♪
♪ The spice of life,
the spice of life ♪
♪ Garlic is the spice of life ♪
♪ Add garlic in your life ♪
♪ Garlic is a spice ♪♪
♪♪[ Guitars]
♪♪[Man Singing In Spanish]
♪♪[Fades]
The reason we use
a lot of garlic in our house -
My mother made pasta with gravy
every Thursday, every Sunday...
and my father had to have
a whole head of garlic.
He loved garlic.
We all did in the family.
But he wanted his whole head
for himself.
He liked that. Really.
[ Man ] He would eat it?
Yeah, and if we had a cold or flu...
my mother would make
a chain of garlic, raw garlic.
If our babies had worms,
we'd make a chain of raw garlic...
so they'd let the worms out.
[ Rose ]
You'd buy 'em in braids.
—You know, the braids?
—[ Man ] Yeah.
Them days, you know,
we had no Frigidaire.
We used to hang them on the wall,
in the kitchen, in the porch, in the basement.
Everything my mother cooked
had garlic in it...
because she knew my father liked it.
Even the fish.
He was a fish man.
He'd bring the fish, we'd boil the fish
or we'd bake the fish...
or we'd make a stew with the fish.
We had to put garlic.
In everything Mama cooked, garlic.
This was an Italian lady
and she always cooked with garlic.
And I noticed that, uh...
they never did have any blood pressure
problems, no heart attacks.
And I think medical science
will tell you...
that using garlic is beneficial for you...
so far as your heart
and your pressure is concerned.
[ George ]
I learned on the barbecue that -
Where I got my recipe from,
this fella, he used garlic...
so I continued to use it.
[ Woman]
♪ I'm sellin' it cheap ♪
♪ 'Cause I got good stuff♪
♪ And if you try one time ♪
♪ You can’t get enough ♪
♪ I'm talkin' 'bout barbecue ♪
♪ Only thing I sell♪
♪ And if you want my meat♪
♪ You can come to my house at 12:00 ♪
♪ Now, some like it hot♪
♪ Some like it cold ♪
♪ Some take it any ♪
♪ Way it's sold ♪
♪ I'm talkin' 'bout barbecue ♪
♪ Only thing I crave ♪
♪ And that good—doin' meat♪
♪ Goin' to take me to my grave ♪♪
[ Speaking Spanish ]
[ Woman ]
[ Woman ]
[ Woman ]
[ Conversation Continues In Spanish ]
[ Woman ]
[ Man Speaking Spanish ]
[ Woman ]
[ Speaking Spanish ]
—♪♪ [ Guitars: Flamenco ]
—[ Men Shouting ]
♪♪ [ Continues ]
[ Guests Laughing ]
♪♪ [ Spanish ]
♪♪ [ Continues In Spanish ]
[ Man ] In Europe they laugh at Americans
who are into garlic...
because they've been into garlic
for thousands of years.
You know, it's the American
Puritan Anglo thing...
that has held garlic addiction down
until very recently.
And now all the old structures...
that have held America together...
are falling apart -
politically, religious—wise.
In every category everything's falling apart...
and people are looking
to the old ways...
the traditional folk,
basic historical roots...
of what it is to be a human being...
and garlic figures
very substantially in that.
Garlic is one of the foods,
the nourishments, the medicines...
that has been at
the very foundations of civilization.
[ Cheering, Applause ]
[ Woman Laughing ]
[ Sows Snorting ]
—[ Woman Laughing ]
—[ Man ] Beautiful.
[ Woman]
I think if we plumb deeply here...
we would discover the garlic secrets...
as to why it appeals to people
who are really passionate about life...
and not, um, imprinted...
with too much civilized behavior.
[ Sow Snorting ]
[ Piglets Squealing ]
[ Woman]
There are people that just plain love it...
for all of its curative properties...
and, uh, Lord knows what else -
mystical.
And then there are people that find it
an essential ingredient to good cooking.
And then there are the people
that grow it.
It has some very, uh, special...
enticing properties.
♪♪[Fiddle, Guitars, Accordion: Cajun]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪[Fades]
[ Woman]
It's something that can't be ignored.
You either like it or you don't like it...
and - and it causes you
to react in some way.
And I love that about food.
I like people to make a response to it.
Whether it's positive or negative,
"I want them to say, That's garlic!"
—[ Woman #2 Laughs]
—You know?
It's really important to me.
And that food does that.
I think that's why we use it so much.
I don't like people to be indifferent
when they eat.
—Can you smell the garlic?
—Yeah! Whoo!
[Man]And there's no doubt
that after you eat a lot of garlic...
you just kind of feel like you're floating.
—You feel ultra confident.
—[Man #2] You do feel kinda light.
[Man] Capable of going out
and whipping your weight in wildcats.
It just makes you feel real good.
It's not like being drunk.
Being drunk is a different kind of euphoria.
Being stoned
is a different kind of euphoria.
A garlic euphoria
is kind of like grounded.
You feel like you've got
both feet planted on the ground.
You're a part of the world,
you're not apart from it, and yet...
you definitely do feel real good.
—[Man] Yes!
♪♪[Fiddle, Guitars, Accordion: Cajun]
♪♪ [ Continues ]
♪♪ [ Man Yells ]
[ Man ]
Hey!
[ Woman] It built up a lot of
anticipation over the year.
People would write in letters and say
they had heard that we had had this event...
and was it really true that we had
every dish with garlic in it?
And what did we cook?
The second year it just seemed like
the natural thing to do again on the 14th of July.
Then there was the third year it happened,
because of great demand again...
and they wanted bigger
and better garlic dishes.
They weren't content with just things
that had a little touch.
I mean, this time they wanted
the whole cloves of garlic.
I mean, they wanted
serious garlic eating.
And in fact, people were disappointed...
because the dishes tasted like
something they could eat at home.
"I don't want to have just pesto.
I want garlic.
You know? Garlic."
♪♪[Mandolins, Guitars:
Swiss—Italian Folk]
[ Harris ] It did seem that
there was a sudden explosion -
exponential explosion
of interest in garlic...
and it had to do with a sort of coming together
of interest in herbalism...
and folk medicine, interest in spices...
interest in European cooking,
Mediterranean cooking...
and the fact that California
is the garlic center...
in terms of production...
of North America...
and probably the greatest
growing region in the world.
So here, all of a sudden,
was Berkeley...
with this flowering of interest
in gourmet cooking.
Here was Berkeley
in the late '60s and early '70s...
into this whole
alternative medicine trip...
this anti—chemical medicine thing.
Here was Berkeley into...
small independent production...
of vegetables...
non herbicides, non pesticides, et cetera...
and all of a sudden
I found myself in the middle of it.
So all of a sudden garlic became
something that triggered my imagination.
It couldn't have been any other food.
That's the amazing thing about garlic.
No other food would sustain
the kind of interest that I had...
and I was amazed to find
how many people...
and how many institutions...
were finding in garlic
something worthy of cult proportion.
And so, I'm a victim of garlic.
[ Man ]
Can I ask you, in Nosferatu...
how come there was no mention of
or allusion to garlic?
[ Werner Herzog ]
It's part of the -the vampire mythology.
I must confess
I have never thought about it.
But the film deviates from the genre
anyway to some extent.
For example, the vampire is, uh...
a very sympathetic human being...
a being who tries to be -
to participate in human things...
like death or love or other things.
But you are right.
There is a lot of references
in Bram Stoker's novel...
about garlic.
Why do you ask this question?
[ Man ] I wasn't just joking about vampires.
I think there are vampires.
They don't suck blood though.
That's just a metaphor.
They, uh - They suck energy.
They're like little vacuums of chill...
and you can - They-
Well, for instance, there was one guy,
I'm sure he's practically a registered vampire.
He was a 17th—century Chinese food snob
named Lee Lee—Wung...
and his specialty
was really bland dishes...
and disapproving of anything with
a very pronounced flavor, very strong flavor.
His idea of a real fancy dish
was plain boiled rice.
Like, you know,
almost like rice porridge.
And the only flavoring
was dew collected from flowers.
And this could only be like wild roses.
Garden roses didn't count.
They weren't any good.
And this guy made a point, boasted of
the fact that he never ate onions or garlic.
And he only ate the tips of chives.
I think we have strict -
This is historical evidence
of a vampire right there.
Can you imagine - Can you imagine
having dinner with this guy?
How about the cloves of garlic
in the sausage that you ate last night?
Well, I'm used to
Polack sausage, you know.
—And it's got lots of garlic in it.
—[ Chuckles ] Yeah.
Then what are you talking about,
you don't like garlic?
I like it if I don't know it's in there.
[ Man In Hat ] The food would not have
tasted the same without that garlic.
—[ Man #2 ] It wouldn't have smelled the same.
—[ Man In Hat ] Garlic provides the bass note.
Garlic provides the bass note.
It's like in a chord, you've gotta
have that good solid bottom.
Well, garlic provides the bottom.
—♪♪[Flamenco]
—Don’t you feel kinda high now?
[Man #2] I must say, it feels good.
I mean, I never ate so much of it.
[ Conversation Continues, Faint]
And the house wine.
[Man In Hat] But wine and garlic
are one of God's great combinations.
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪ [ Shouting In Spanish ]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪[Singing In Spanish]
Coarse grind for the sausage.
♪♪[ Continues]
—¿ Más? ¿ Más?
—Más. Más.
♪♪[Singing In Spanish]
[ Speaking Spanish ]
♪♪[Singing In Spanish]
♪♪ [ Continues In Spanish ]
[ Spanish ]
Más. Más.
—¿ Más?
—Sí.
—Bueno.
—¿ Bueno?
♪♪[Singing In Spanish Continues]
[ Spanish ]
—Anzonini.
—¿ Sí?
[ Speaking Spanish ]
[ Woman ] What happens to the sausage
after it's finished like this?
Okay, then - That's why
these strings are so handy.
We hang 'em over the stove
and they dry for three weeks.
See, we'll hang these up
over the stove...
and they'll be -
[ Sniffs ] beautiful.
[ Man ]
"I love ginger. I love hot pepper.
I love garlic. I love onion.
I love wine. I love jogging.
I love butterfly.
I love galloping under blue sky.
I love chasing wind in sunshine.
I love beauty. I love America."
We put the cottonseed oil first.
That's, uh, over high heat.
When it getting hot, real hot...
then -
[ Sizzling ]
put the chicken.
Stir—fry vigorously.
Stir—fry vigorously...
until the meat becomes white.
Then...
you put the other ingredients in -
bell pepper, carrots, sliced carrots...
and, uh, bamboo shoots.
And put lots of garlic inside,
minced garlic.
The more you put,
the better it tastes.
Now for the soy sauce.
And wine.
—See? [ Chuckles ]
—[ Man ] Great.
♪♪[Mandolins, Guitars:
Swiss—Italian Folk]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪ [ Continues ]
[ Whistling ]
♪♪[Ends]
Hey, what do you kids
think about garlic?
—It's okay.
—It's okay.
It's okay.
—Hey, Matt, come on down.
—What?
I got a guy here
who wants to ask you a question.
Hello. I was gonna ask you
if you had any opinions about garlic.
You know what garlic is?
Mmm, yeah.
Do you like it?
Uh... no.
—Do you like garlic?
—Yeah.
Uh, what kind of food
do you eat it on?
Mmm, garlic bread,
garlic sauce.
—All that kind of junk.
—Great.
Uh, why do you like it?
Because it gives you
a tingly feeling in your mouth.
How 'bout the way garlic smells?
[ Kids ]
Ewwww!
[Announcer]
Fights strong mouth odors.
—♪♪ [ Piano: Notes ]
—I just ate garlic bread.
—Kiss me.
—Garlic?
Come on. Kiss me.
I got the Signal.
Hey. Nice.
[Announcer]
Signal fights strong mouth odors.
Even garlic, even onions.
Gives you fresher, cleaner breath.
Clinical tests prove it.
—A kiss'll prove it.
—Kiss me.
I smell like garlic.
[ Cheering, Applause ]
Most of us, we are from Paris.
We were a group of young friends.
And of course we would search...
for the young ladies of Southern France.
The Arlésienne type -
black hair, black eyes, dark skin.
And we always noticed
that they had a special smell.
And we went further in our studies...
as we became more knowledgeable
of the ladies...
and we found out that not only
they would eat garlic frequently...
but in daytime,
to protect their skin...
they would rub a type of olive oil...
mixed with garlic over their skin.
And this gives them
a beautiful suntan...
where we would get burned all the time.
At evenings we discovered,
when we went to the beaches...
there were thousands of mosquitoes...
and those young ladies
who were rubbed with garlic...
would never get one sting.
And us poor fellows...
somehow, with our shirt off
and something else...
always got thousands of mosquitoes
in our back.
And believe me, we were stinged
for the better of love.
—[ Chattering ]
—Whoo! Whoo!
—You get that?
—Dainty little handfuls!
Get it! Get it!
[ Woman ] Is that wine? White wine?
—[ Woman ] Garlic, right?
—[ Man ] This is garlic.
[ Woman #2 ]
Yay! Hit it with the garlic!
—[ Woman ] What is that white stuff?
—[ Man ] This is Italian marijuana.
The base to all good food.
Without garlic, you don't bring out
the true flavor of the food.
Now some dry oregano...
and some fresh basil...
fresh parsley.
[ Man ]
This is right in our harvest time of garlic.
We're harvesting all the fields.
I just got through my field
yesterday at 12:00.
Just got through harvesting.
Yeah.
—[ Man #2 ] Wow.
—[ Woman ] What do you do?
—What do you do besides cooking?
—I farm.
—[ Woman ] Uh—huh.
—I'm a farmer.
I raise garlic and tomatoes.
Do you have a big farm
or a small farm?
Nah, I have only a small farm.
I got 100 acres.
That's enough.
Marinara sauce.
Let that cook in there a few minutes -
about two minutes - and it's ready.
♪♪[ Upbeat: Man Singing
In Foreign Language]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪ [ Continues ]
♪♪ [ Singing Continues ]
♪♪ [ Continues ]
♪♪ [ Continues ]
[Harris] When Satan walked
from the Garden of Eden...
garlic appeared from the ground
where his left foot rested...
and an onion sprouted at his right foot.
[Man] One of the earliest
and most curious stories about garlic...
is that garlic was one of the foods
of the people who built the pyramids.
On one occasion,
when the garlic supply ran low...
people refused to work.
This may have been
the first recorded strike in history.
Wild varieties of garlic
are found throughout the world.
But garlic as we know it
is called Allium sativum.
It was first cultivated
around 4, 000 years ago...
in the Kyrgyz desert region of Siberia.
From there it traveled through China...
and down the trade routes
to the rest of the world.
[ Woman]
♪ There are spices and vegetables ♪
♪ That you can grow ♪
♪ Some are under the ground,
some grow tall♪
♪ Though they all have their qualities ♪
♪ This you should know ♪
♪ That the garlic is best of them all♪
♪ The Egyptians, Phoenicians,
the Vikings and Greeks ♪
♪ Babylonians, Danes and Chinese ♪
♪ On their voyages
took enough garlic for weeks ♪
♪ And their enemies
died on the breeze ♪♪
[Man] Garlic is the second most
consumed spice in the U. S.A....
second only to black pepper.
Over 150 million pounds of garlic
are grown annually...
in the United States of America...
90% of it in California.
Over two—thirds of the garlic crop...
is dehydrated into flakes,
powders and salts.
However, garlic's curative properties
are greatly diminished...
if it is dehydrated
under intense heat.
Nonetheless,
dogs and cats like garlic so much...
that many brands of pet food...
contain dehydrated garlic.
[ Man ] How come you use garlic salt
instead of real garlic...
in the stuff you cook?
Because it's easier.
It's easier than having to peel garlic.
Cheaper too.
Doesn't it change
the way the food tastes?
No, it sure doesn't.
It doesn't change the taste.
But you know, like, it's modern times.
You like the easiest way out, huh?
If you're only gonna peel
a couple of cloves of garlic...
it doesn't matter how you peel 'em.
But if you're gonna have to peel
40 cloves of garlic for a 40—clove chicken...
or if you're gonna make a lot of garlic bread
and you need a lot of garlic...
uh, the faster methods of peeling garlic
are definitely superior.
Um, I mean, once you get into this...
you can peel garlic fast enough...
that you don't need to use instant garlic.
Instant garlic
isn't really an issue anymore...
because this is
as fast as it needs to be.
And it feels good to do it.
That's the part that's
a little hard to talk about...
without sounding
like a hippie dipshit.
♪♪[Strings, Accordion:
French Folk Tune]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪[Fades]
[Man] Eleanor Roosevelt,
to keep her memory sharp...
ate three cloves of garlic a day
dipped in chocolate.
[ Young Man ]
I started liking garlic...
and then he influenced me some more
when we went to Mexico.
We were there and we started getting
the first symptoms of dysentery.
That means going to the bathroom often
and feeling sick.
So we said, well, starting today
we're gonna eat nine cloves of garlic a day.
So we went down to
the Mexican vending place...
and they sold orange juice...
and we bought some orange juice
and stuck a clove in our mouth...
to chew it up
while we drank the orange juice...
and ate nine cloves a day.
And after that point we didn't catch...
any symptoms of dysentery...
and we had no problems at all.
♪♪[Strings: Instrumental]
♪♪[Man Shouts In Spanish]
♪♪[Man Shouts In Spanish]
♪♪[Instrumental Continues]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪[Fades]
[Man]
In the 1930s...
scientists discovered
that garlic vapor...
produced a full spectrum light...
much like sunlight...
when excited by electric current.
[Harris] The future of garlic
is going to be tricky...
because there are industrial forces...
that want to follow
the convenience food philosophy...
of easy access, easy consumption...
long shelf life.
Garlic will come to you already peeled...
in little cellophane strips.
All you do is break the seal
and pop out the clove.
You're going to find
new techniques in processing...
where they can create a dehydrated product
that you can rehydrate...
and it will be very close
to the real thing.
I like to think that the other force
will win out and that is...
independent, small growers of garlic...
along with larger growers who are aware
that people still want to eat real food...
and that the fun of garlic
is in the peeling of the clove.
It's in the work.
[ Man ] You grow everything
organically here, right?
Uh, yeah, we do -
about 30 acres of row crops,
cool—weather vegetables.
We're on the coast.
It's a very temperate, moderate climate...
but it never gets very hot.
So we grow cool—weather crops.
Garlic we have a little bit of.
Not - It's about -
Only about a half—acre of it this year.
Broccoli, squashes, cucumbers...
potatoes, artichokes.
But as a grower, I enjoy it.
I enjoy the garlic.
It's a different type of crop.
We enjoy all our crops.
They're interesting to watch.
I don't, um -
I'm not a fanatic about garlic...
but I am something of a fanatic...
about getting, uh, really safe...
nontoxic foods to people...
and, uh...
that's really where my orientation is.
There isn't any crop, no matter
how good you thought it was for you...
that if it's grown poorly...
or in a dangerous way...
is gonna be good for you.
People deserve to eat food
that's safe to eat.
[ Woman]♪ Since Biblical times
in all parts of the earth ♪
♪ It has cured countless
sufferings and ills ♪
♪ If we understood
what the garlic is worth ♪
♪ We would throw out
our poisonous pills ♪
[ Women Harmonizing]
♪ In Bulgaria's mountains ♪
♪ And Russia's white plains ♪
♪ People live to 100 years old ♪
♪ For it's juice of the garlic
that runs in their veins ♪
♪ Oh, it's worth twice its weight
in pure gold ♪
♪ With silenium, germanium, allicin too ♪
♪ It can fight off all types of disease ♪
♪ So if you’ve got arthritis, T. B. or the flu ♪
♪ Just say,
"Peel me a garlic clove, please"♪
♪ Plant some cloves in your garden
to keep away worms ♪
♪ And other bad things that kill plants ♪
♪ If you’re one of those people ♪
♪ Concerned about germs ♪
♪ You can drop one or two in your pants ♪
♪ There are spices and vegetables
that you can grow ♪
♪ Some are under the ground,
some grow tall♪
♪ Though they all have their qualities,
this you should know ♪
♪ That the garlic is best of them all♪♪
♪♪[Mariachi]
♪♪[ Continues,
Men Singing In Spanish]
[Applause]
♪♪[Mariachi Continues]
♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey, hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey ♪
♪♪[Ends]
♪♪[Fiddles, Guitars: Upbeat Folk]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪♪[Fades]
[Rustling, Garlic Heads
Landing In Bucket]
♪♪[Fiddles, Guitars: Cajun]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪ Yeah ♪
♪♪[Man Singing In Cajun French]
♪♪[ Continues]
♪ Ohh ♪
♪♪[ Continues]
♪ Yeah ♪
♪♪[Man Singing In Cajun French]
♪ Ohh ♪
♪♪[Ends]
[Applause]