September 17, 2019--Garlic

For dinner we planned to make an apple and chicken sausage frittata and, among other things, needed garlic.

"Let's get an organic one," Rona said. "Frittatas are best with fresh tasting ingredients."

"Then Rising Tide it is." Our local organic food shop.

It's the height of the harvest season here and the store is a veritable cornucopia of root vegetables, many varieties of squash, greens of all sorts, and a bushel basket of locally-grown garlic.

"How does this one feel to you?" Rona asked tossing it to me.

"Perfect. Voluptuous bulbs and hard as a rock. Just what one looks for."

"And smell it," Rona said, doing so herself.

"Right out of the ground," I said. "Let's get one. It will be wonderful as part of the frittata."

"Can you believe it?" Rona said. "It's $15 a pound. And this one weighs about a quarter of a pound"--she had placed it in the scale--"and could cost four dollars. A little much, don't you think, for a simple garlic?"

"Maybe it's not so simple," I said. "The good news is that we only need a few cloves."

"I know they charge a fortune for anything organic but about this I don't know. How much less flavorable will your basic supermarket garlic taste?"

"Let's find out."

"So, we went to Hannafords and checked out their garlics. They looked pretty much the same as Rising Tide's. And cost only $5.25 a pound.

"That's more like it," I said. "It appears that they're from California. And though it costs a lot more to get here than the ones locally grown, it's still much cheaper."

"This has piqued my interest," Rona said. "Let's see what they cost in Reilly's." Our local family owned and run market. So we drove to New Harbor. Their garlic was also from California and cost about the same as the supermarket's.

"One more stop," I said. "The other food market back in town that's also family run.

With time on our hands and our interest aroused, we drove back to Damariscotta to check out the garlic at a small family-run market. It was a great surprise to see theirs cost $12.50 a pound. More than two and a half times what our supermarket and local market charge.

"I wonder why," Rona asked. "Maybe they're organic. And let's see where they come from. Perhaps France?"

"No way," I said, this is not a fancy store and their carrying imported or organic garlic is unlikely.

On the box that held the garlic was a shipping label.

"Can you believe it," Rona said, "It is imported. From China."

"iPhones and T-shirts I get, but garlic from the other side of the planet? Literally, we live in a world turned upside down. And I'm sure there's nothing so special about Chinese garlic. I suspect most of it winds up in modest pizzerias all over Brooklyn."

"You have to admit," Rona said, "That they make a lot of good pizza in Brooklyn. But here's one other possibility."

"What's that?"

"They cost $12.50 a pound because Trump's put a tariff on garlic."

"If true, and he's crazy enough to have done that, forget soybeans but do worry about the fate of Italian food."