Alton Brown knows a thing or two about cooking. The Food Network personality, cookbook author, and food scientist is a font of culinary knowledge. He has genius techniques for perfecting your coffee brew and can even help you light a charcoal grill without lighter fluid. Along with his wealth of kitchen know-how, however, Brown also carries with him some pretty strongly held opinions. The crafty cook, known for his scientific-minded cooking hacks, has a particularly stark view of cooking gadgets. His disdain for so called “unitaskers,” or kitchen tools that only serve one single function, is well documented. But there is perhaps one cooking tool that Alton Brown hates above all else: the garlic press.
Now, it may seem obvious as to why Brown would dislike the appliance. After all, it is the epitome of a unitasker if we’ve ever seen one. It has one use: to crush garlic. However, another reason that Brown hates the tool is its lack of cleanliness. In a video posted to Brown’s Facebook page, he derides the press as being “dirty” while shaking out dried garlic remains onto the camera. Though it should be noted that the press does still have a place in his kitchen drawers, if only at the behest of his wife.
There’s more than one way to dice a bulb of garlic
So how does Alton Brown suggest we crush our garlic, if not with a garlic press? Well, for that he uses another gadget, one that could very well be accused of being a unitasker if not for his crafty usage. Instead, Brown uses an egg slicer, cutting the garlic several times until it’s in small enough chunks for his liking. Now, you will want to clean the slicer out between uses, but this should be less difficult than washing a garlic press as the slicing component isn’t as small. If you don’t feel like using this method either, you can always turn to fellow garlic press hater Anthony Bourdain’s advice and smash your garlic with the flat side of a knife.
Not using a press, according to Bourdain, is a matter of respecting the beloved, flavor-packed ingredient. And, to be fair, putting garlic through a press probably isn’t the best way to dice it. And it goes beyond issues of cleanliness. It can actually change the flavor profile of the garlic itself, as crushing it breaks down its cell walls, making it more pungent and harsh in flavor. Then again, you can do as so many other home cooks have done and politely ignore this guidance. After all, many cooks also swear by their garlic presses. To each their own.
