How Anthony Bourdain Really Felt About Jarred Garlic

When Anthony Bourdain published "Kitchen Confidential" in 2000, he dropped a series of truth bombs for readers. From trade secrets and unspoken rules about eating out, to his personal tips and tricks, Bourdain gave a lot of valuable advice. He spilled the beans on exactly how much butter goes into the food you're eating at a restaurant, the worst days in the week to order seafood, and why you absolutely should never go for a brunch again. While the book helped a lot in terms of making decisions with regards to eating out, there is a lot of information that can be incorporated in home cooking as well.

Bourdain had very strong opinions, especially when it came to choosing fresh ingredients. In the book, Bourdain said that you should always choose fresh ingredients over processed ones, and so, you should be using fresh garlic instead of jarred garlic, even though the latter can be more convenient to use. Not one to shy away from expressing his opinions as they are, he said that if you're "Too lazy to peel fresh? You don't deserve to eat garlic" (via CheatSheet).

His soft spot for fresh ingredients aside, Bourdain was onto something when he said that he wasn't a fan of jarred garlic. Jarred garlic is essentially a jar of chopped garlic. Using jarred garlic can definitely be more convenient, because you don't have to peel or chop.

It's also true that jarred garlic has a longer shelf life than fresh garlic (via My Recipes). As quick as scooping a spoonful of jarred garlic into a recipe may be, there are a few things to keep in mind if you're doing so.

Fresh garlic has more flavor than jarred garlic, is more aromatic, and adds a bit of heat that jarred garlic does not. Besides, if you're using fresh garlic, you get the freedom to decide how you'd like to chop it. Chopped, minced and crushed garlic all add different levels of flavor to food — minced and crushed garlic add an instant punch of flavor, whereas chopped garlic works better when it is allowed to impart flavor over a longer period of time. The Kitchn also found that jarred garlic has a more suppressed flavor of garlic and has a noticeable taste from being packed in a jar. Besides, the smell of frying fresh garlic in butter isn't the same as frying jarred garlic.

If Bourdain's vehement dislike for jarred garlic isn't enough to convince you to switch over to fresh garlic, HuffPost points out that you don't really know where a particular bottle of jarred garlic has come from, as opposed to picking fresh garlic from a market. The website says that some jarred garlic bottles may have bleach as well as phosphoric acid (the acid used to get rid of rust) in them.