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Originally Posted by: bittrette

Bottom line for now: I am considering a recipe that calls for 1 smashed clove of garlic. I will take all suggestions for a non-garlic substitute for that, because my reaction to any garlic beyond a mere hint is YUCK. That goes for roasted garlic too.

I would say it depends on the recipe: I would try minced chives, ginger and then in some recipes maybe horseradish or shallots as you suggested earlier?

Now that I've reflected on my experience with garlic, I have to modify what I said before.

I've had green beans with garlic in two different Italian restaurants. One was Monte's, in Greenwich Village, back in the 60's and 70's. My family ate there often, and I used to wonder what made the green beans so good. It was the garlic, applied with a light touch. I had to hold the dish in my memory before I realized it was the garlic. OTOH an Italian restaurant in the Queens neighborhood where I live puts so much garlic in the beans that when I was there I left most of the green beans over.

I also loved the pre-Kraft Seven Seas chunky blue cheese dressing, not the least for its hint of garlic, I Iike garlic bread when it is served with tomato-sauced pasta, and the combination of garlic and ginger in Asian dishes. OTOH roasting does nothing to endear garlic to me. 

There's a cookbook called "Everything Tastes Better with Garlic." When I told my mother, we had a laugh together.

I'm not a garlic hater, just a garlic disliker. Especially in the context of today's cooking, where it's hard to find a savory recipe that does not call for garlic.

I have jars of garlic powder and crushed garlic to serve my modest garlic needs, but I feel for those who are allergic to garlic or who hate all alliums.

I'm bumping this thread because I'm looking for more advice on how to cook with little or no garlic, and WHY a dislike of garlic is considered NOT EVEN WORTH ADDRESSING.

To wit: Mollie Katzen (in Still Life with Menu, I believe) has a recipe for vegetarian matzo ball soup. It calls for lots of garlic. Katzen reports that others have asked her how to make the soup without the garlic. She says you can't. I have two takeaways from this: 1) I'm not the only one who would like to avoid or minimize garlic, and 2) the solution is not as simple as "just omit it."

Bitrette - have you tried using a substitution : something like asafoetida powder? Here's a link!

There is another reason why someone might not want to put garlic into a dish: they have an intolerance or allergy to garlic.

Know a number of people with varying degress of this condition from one who tastes nothing else but garlic for hours after a meal even if all that happened was the chef smeared garlic on a dish — and would spoil the meal for everyone else by going on about it — to someone who is alergic to any allium be it garlic or onion whether it is cooked in something or simply on the breath of another person who ate alliums earlier.

One of my close family is intolerant to allium. There is a wonderful passage at the start of Olia Hercules's book Home Food about apples tasting of onions! I knew instantly why before she explained. The same chopping board and/or knife had been used to cut the apple as had been used to chop onions. This is why we have a separate chopping board in our kitchen for allium and other highly flavoured/spicy vegetables. (Peppers are also chopped on that board for identical reasons.)