The US's Garlic King Dies
December 25, 2022 10:37 AM Subscribe
Don Christopher, a California farmer who turned the humble, much-maligned bulb of garlic into a staple in millions of American homes and elevated the sleepy town of Gilroy into the garlic capital of the world, died on Dec. 12 in Gilroy. He was 88. (archive.today link)
I'd love to read a more in-depth look at how he built his empire of vertical integration. Farming is such a basic commodity business. But to grow from farming to processing and packaging and retail distribution and branded marketing. It's an impressive accomplishment.
(Also a bit frustrating; after years of using their convenience peeled garlic this year I finally realized that stuff just isn't as good as real fresh garlic. A big part of Christopher Ranch's problem is they often are selling you garlic that's been stored for a year or more. It seems to lose the bite that fresh garlic has.)
posted by Nelson at 10:54 AM on December 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
(Also a bit frustrating; after years of using their convenience peeled garlic this year I finally realized that stuff just isn't as good as real fresh garlic. A big part of Christopher Ranch's problem is they often are selling you garlic that's been stored for a year or more. It seems to lose the bite that fresh garlic has.)
posted by Nelson at 10:54 AM on December 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
.
posted by May Kasahara at 11:09 AM on December 25, 2022
posted by May Kasahara at 11:09 AM on December 25, 2022
This is the first year (skipping Covid years) that Gilroy didn't host the very popular Gilroy Garlic Festival, since Don Christopher started it in 1979 (mainly because of the shooter who showed up in 2019).
just noticed this is mentioned in the article. My sister was there when the shooter showed up.
posted by eye of newt at 11:16 AM on December 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
just noticed this is mentioned in the article. My sister was there when the shooter showed up.
posted by eye of newt at 11:16 AM on December 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
.
Many memories of visiting the festival in the 1990s and even more of just driving by the farm on my way to/from Santa Cruz. Also the many farm stands on the old section of 101 ('El Camino Real') that's long since by-passed and gone.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 11:31 AM on December 25, 2022
Many memories of visiting the festival in the 1990s and even more of just driving by the farm on my way to/from Santa Cruz. Also the many farm stands on the old section of 101 ('El Camino Real') that's long since by-passed and gone.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 11:31 AM on December 25, 2022
Or just driving up the 101 past Gilroy and smelling garlic on the wind!
I have to share an anecdote about garlic, even though not related to Mr. Christopher’s passing. There was a restaurant in San Francisco called the Stinking Rose. (Highly probable that the garlic supplied there came from Christopher Ranch though.) I had dinner there when I was in town for a conference. Garlic in everything, I even tried garlic ice cream. I couldn’t understand why people were making such strange looks at me the next day until I realized that I had consumed so much garlic it was emanating from my pores.
posted by gryphonlover at 11:41 AM on December 25, 2022 [9 favorites]
I have to share an anecdote about garlic, even though not related to Mr. Christopher’s passing. There was a restaurant in San Francisco called the Stinking Rose. (Highly probable that the garlic supplied there came from Christopher Ranch though.) I had dinner there when I was in town for a conference. Garlic in everything, I even tried garlic ice cream. I couldn’t understand why people were making such strange looks at me the next day until I realized that I had consumed so much garlic it was emanating from my pores.
posted by gryphonlover at 11:41 AM on December 25, 2022 [9 favorites]
🧄
I'm glad he helped bring garlic to white Americans!
posted by sotonohito at 11:45 AM on December 25, 2022 [15 favorites]
I'm glad he helped bring garlic to white Americans!
posted by sotonohito at 11:45 AM on December 25, 2022 [15 favorites]
🧄
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 11:58 AM on December 25, 2022
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 11:58 AM on December 25, 2022
Apparently Fresno is California's true garlic capital. Gilroy, so close to Silicon Valley is feeling a lot of development pressure and farmland is getting converted into condos. And of course, China produces 75% of the garlic in the world.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:30 PM on December 25, 2022
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:30 PM on December 25, 2022
And of course, contemporary with the start of the festival would have been Les Blanc's Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers. I seem to recall some of it was shot there.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 12:39 PM on December 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 12:39 PM on December 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
Apparently Fresno is California's true garlic capital. Gilroy, so close to Silicon Valley is feeling a lot of development pressure and farmland is getting converted into condos.--CheeseDigestsAll
This is just repeating the process that started in Silicon Valley. When I was just a kid, Santa Clara Valley was mostly fruit orchards. As an architect friend of mind used to say, it has some of the best farming topsoil in the country, all covered up with asphalt and tilt-ups.
Gilroy is far enough away that there are still lots of farms, and the smell of garlic is still in the air every year. But it is starting to follow a similar course--mostly housing for now.
posted by eye of newt at 12:56 PM on December 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
This is just repeating the process that started in Silicon Valley. When I was just a kid, Santa Clara Valley was mostly fruit orchards. As an architect friend of mind used to say, it has some of the best farming topsoil in the country, all covered up with asphalt and tilt-ups.
Gilroy is far enough away that there are still lots of farms, and the smell of garlic is still in the air every year. But it is starting to follow a similar course--mostly housing for now.
posted by eye of newt at 12:56 PM on December 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
I beg to differ, but the garlic capital of the world is Lautrec.
posted by nicolin at 1:03 PM on December 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by nicolin at 1:03 PM on December 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I beg to differ, but the garlic capital of the world is Lautrec.
Lautrec looks like a good place to visit. It grows about 800 tons of garlic every year. Fresno grows about 178,000 tons of garlic every year!
I can't find Gilroy's number, but apparently Don Christopher donated 2 tons of garlic to the Gilroy Garlic Festival every year. (And the Stinking Rose restaurant that gryphonlover mentions above apparently goes through 50 tons of garlic a year).
posted by eye of newt at 1:20 PM on December 25, 2022
Lautrec looks like a good place to visit. It grows about 800 tons of garlic every year. Fresno grows about 178,000 tons of garlic every year!
I can't find Gilroy's number, but apparently Don Christopher donated 2 tons of garlic to the Gilroy Garlic Festival every year. (And the Stinking Rose restaurant that gryphonlover mentions above apparently goes through 50 tons of garlic a year).
posted by eye of newt at 1:20 PM on December 25, 2022
the shooter who showed up in 2019
... a shooter showed up at a garlic festival?!?
posted by mhoye at 1:34 PM on December 25, 2022
... a shooter showed up at a garlic festival?!?
posted by mhoye at 1:34 PM on December 25, 2022
I was just enjoying the leftovers of the 44 clove garlic soup recipe that I was introduced to by a post on mefi.social. I’m thankful that garlic was popularized!
posted by aneel at 1:36 PM on December 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by aneel at 1:36 PM on December 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
a shooter showed up at a garlic festival?!?
Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting. (I’d like to focus on something other than this tragedy. Let’s get back to discussing Christopher and how delicious garlic is.)
posted by zamboni at 1:47 PM on December 25, 2022
Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting. (I’d like to focus on something other than this tragedy. Let’s get back to discussing Christopher and how delicious garlic is.)
posted by zamboni at 1:47 PM on December 25, 2022
Can I gripe about the festival a bit?
I feel like the use of prepped minced garlic really weakened the intensity of the food offerings. I get it's convenient and at the scale of the festival, probably something of a necessity. But definitely diminishes the results.
Other takes on this?
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:58 PM on December 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I feel like the use of prepped minced garlic really weakened the intensity of the food offerings. I get it's convenient and at the scale of the festival, probably something of a necessity. But definitely diminishes the results.
Other takes on this?
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:58 PM on December 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Rest in pungence, Don.
I'm still working through my last garlic crop ('Early Italian Red'), though we're down to the last few heads. It's surprisingly easy to grow - around here, I plant the cloves in the late summer/early fall and harvest them the mid-summer afterward. While the heads are drying, the garage reeks most gloriously (to say nothing of the pantry afterward). You can save the biggest heads, then use them to plant the next crop. I never do this because we end up eating it all.
Anyway, give it a try if you've got a bit of sunny space outside. They do well in raised beds so I imagine they'd also do OK in containers. I've had great success with cloves from Hood River Garlic in Oregon, but I have also heard of folks just picking up organic garlic from the local grocery store and planting it. You want organic so it'll sprout; the other stuff has been treated not to sprout for a longer shelf-life in the store.
posted by jquinby at 2:04 PM on December 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm still working through my last garlic crop ('Early Italian Red'), though we're down to the last few heads. It's surprisingly easy to grow - around here, I plant the cloves in the late summer/early fall and harvest them the mid-summer afterward. While the heads are drying, the garage reeks most gloriously (to say nothing of the pantry afterward). You can save the biggest heads, then use them to plant the next crop. I never do this because we end up eating it all.
Anyway, give it a try if you've got a bit of sunny space outside. They do well in raised beds so I imagine they'd also do OK in containers. I've had great success with cloves from Hood River Garlic in Oregon, but I have also heard of folks just picking up organic garlic from the local grocery store and planting it. You want organic so it'll sprout; the other stuff has been treated not to sprout for a longer shelf-life in the store.
posted by jquinby at 2:04 PM on December 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
One of the products courtesy of the Gilroy Garlic Festival was garlic wine, which originally was made as a joke by a local winery there. Turns out the joke was quite delicious! We once stopped at the winery to try it. A dry white wine with a distinct garlic taste but with a clean non garlic finish. Garlic makes everything better!
posted by njohnson23 at 2:55 PM on December 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 2:55 PM on December 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Other takes on this?
Probably more than you want, right here
posted by chavenet at 3:42 PM on December 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Probably more than you want, right here
posted by chavenet at 3:42 PM on December 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
... a shooter showed up at a garlic festival?!?
Yeah, you won't get that in Lautrec. The authentic American experience.
This year there was an effort to have a National Garlic Festival and Food Expo in Fresno this year. Some 20,000 people came (compare 100,000 for Gilroy). There's hope to have the Gilroy Garlic Festival in 2023 but they've had a rough go. Between Covid and the shooting and the City of Gilroy demanding the festival have more insurance it's not clear what will happen this coming year.
posted by Nelson at 3:53 PM on December 25, 2022
Yeah, you won't get that in Lautrec. The authentic American experience.
This year there was an effort to have a National Garlic Festival and Food Expo in Fresno this year. Some 20,000 people came (compare 100,000 for Gilroy). There's hope to have the Gilroy Garlic Festival in 2023 but they've had a rough go. Between Covid and the shooting and the City of Gilroy demanding the festival have more insurance it's not clear what will happen this coming year.
posted by Nelson at 3:53 PM on December 25, 2022
I'm glad I got my partner to peel a load of garlic for me before their surgery; that was 2 weeks ago and they can just now do such things again. Our house cannot go 2 weeks without garlic.
I buy the biggest firm heads I can, with the shrivelled roots, they will generally keep well for a couple weeks before peeling, on a lower shelf where it's barely 60 degrees.
Once peeled, the cloves are kept in a thick walled deli container in the bottom of the fridge, snuggled with the kimchi and scallions and other potent delights. They also keep quite a while, but get used up mostly before seeing any sprouts or damage. We've never had them around long enough to go bad, so you know how much garlic we use on the daily.
I loved driving south from trips to NorCal, knowing we were passing Gilroy just by the smell. Way back in the day we stopped and tried all the stuff; I think they must have tweaked the wine recipe since then because that memory is, erm, not joyous.
posted by winesong at 4:00 PM on December 25, 2022
I buy the biggest firm heads I can, with the shrivelled roots, they will generally keep well for a couple weeks before peeling, on a lower shelf where it's barely 60 degrees.
Once peeled, the cloves are kept in a thick walled deli container in the bottom of the fridge, snuggled with the kimchi and scallions and other potent delights. They also keep quite a while, but get used up mostly before seeing any sprouts or damage. We've never had them around long enough to go bad, so you know how much garlic we use on the daily.
I loved driving south from trips to NorCal, knowing we were passing Gilroy just by the smell. Way back in the day we stopped and tried all the stuff; I think they must have tweaked the wine recipe since then because that memory is, erm, not joyous.
posted by winesong at 4:00 PM on December 25, 2022
So for Christmas this year my roomie made their Italian family's spaghetti sauce which needless to say uses a lot of garlic.
I'll have to share this. RIP.
posted by symbioid at 4:56 PM on December 25, 2022
I'll have to share this. RIP.
posted by symbioid at 4:56 PM on December 25, 2022
what sotonohito said. It took some work, though - I remember my mother being criticized in the 1970s US Midwest for using garlic, though not by the neighbors with experience of the wider world.
She got good garlic from an actual weekly-visit truck farmer, like an ice cream truck but vegetables; he grew it for his Italian customers and was figuring out what he could grow for the more recent waves of displaced people.
posted by clew at 5:20 PM on December 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
She got good garlic from an actual weekly-visit truck farmer, like an ice cream truck but vegetables; he grew it for his Italian customers and was figuring out what he could grow for the more recent waves of displaced people.
posted by clew at 5:20 PM on December 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
So for Christmas this year my roomie made their Italian family's spaghetti sauce which needless to say uses a lot of garlic.
On the backend of a Midwestern blizzard that rendered the city silent - and with the windows iced around the edges - I spent an indescribably ambrosial hour and a half last night preparing our Christmas Eve spaghetti sauce while sipping some red blend and mincing an imposing mound of the godly stuff with the local classical station providing the perfect aural accompaniment. A better mix of all senses I have not had for too long, and the result at the table was also the first thing on my mind when I woke.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 5:36 PM on December 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
On the backend of a Midwestern blizzard that rendered the city silent - and with the windows iced around the edges - I spent an indescribably ambrosial hour and a half last night preparing our Christmas Eve spaghetti sauce while sipping some red blend and mincing an imposing mound of the godly stuff with the local classical station providing the perfect aural accompaniment. A better mix of all senses I have not had for too long, and the result at the table was also the first thing on my mind when I woke.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 5:36 PM on December 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
On the way north to Fresno, there is a town called Ajo, Spanish for garlic. Sometimes there are mountains of it, and the smell! So great! RIP Mr. Christopher, we owe you big time!
posted by Oyéah at 5:54 PM on December 25, 2022
posted by Oyéah at 5:54 PM on December 25, 2022
I went to the Gilroy garlic festival once as a kid - my aunt and uncle took me (and my cousin) on a train there, it was maybe an hour away. I tried garlic soft serve ice cream (not good) and had lots of very delicious garlicky foods too. I hadn’t thought about that for years!
posted by maleficent at 7:17 PM on December 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by maleficent at 7:17 PM on December 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
.(")
I distinctly remember an elderly partner's grandfather who had lived in CA for 60 years tell me how much he hated visiting the homes of a specific ethnicity because of the garlic. I have many complaints about the world, but US food is certainly better today than when I was a kid, much more since he was. (I thought the ice cream at the festival was great. But, cheers to those who disagree.)
" I think. Haven't read the article yet. It's hard on this device. I plan to.
posted by eotvos at 2:41 AM on December 26, 2022
I distinctly remember an elderly partner's grandfather who had lived in CA for 60 years tell me how much he hated visiting the homes of a specific ethnicity because of the garlic. I have many complaints about the world, but US food is certainly better today than when I was a kid, much more since he was. (I thought the ice cream at the festival was great. But, cheers to those who disagree.)
" I think. Haven't read the article yet. It's hard on this device. I plan to.
posted by eotvos at 2:41 AM on December 26, 2022
Like jquimby, we have started growing garlic and it’s surprisingly easy but slow. You have to be patient, the spoils are WELL worth the wait. A fresh pesto made out of the garlic scapes, after you harvest, is one of the most delicious things that you will ever have the pleasure to eat.
posted by pearlybob at 4:47 AM on December 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by pearlybob at 4:47 AM on December 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
.
And to think that my family follows the culinary restrictions of my tribe and does not use Onions or Garlic in their cooking. I, OTOH, start chopping Onions and Garlic before I even know what I am going to make.
posted by indianbadger1 at 8:39 AM on December 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
And to think that my family follows the culinary restrictions of my tribe and does not use Onions or Garlic in their cooking. I, OTOH, start chopping Onions and Garlic before I even know what I am going to make.
posted by indianbadger1 at 8:39 AM on December 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
• "Chicken with forty cloves of garlic" -- a favorite George Booth cartoon.
• I have made it, and it is good. I have also made cream of garlic soup and it was delicious. Either of these dishes does an outstanding job of garlicking your apartment for a week.
• I used to roast heads of garlic in the oven in a little lidded ceramic dish made for the purpose. After an hour in the oven you can spread the garlic like butter on bread. Recommended.
posted by neuron at 10:47 AM on December 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
• I have made it, and it is good. I have also made cream of garlic soup and it was delicious. Either of these dishes does an outstanding job of garlicking your apartment for a week.
• I used to roast heads of garlic in the oven in a little lidded ceramic dish made for the purpose. After an hour in the oven you can spread the garlic like butter on bread. Recommended.
posted by neuron at 10:47 AM on December 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
Managed to make it one year, on a Green Tortoise bus tour. The festival did not disappoint - garlic ice cream!
RIP and so it goes.
posted by johnabbe at 2:34 PM on December 26, 2022
RIP and so it goes.
posted by johnabbe at 2:34 PM on December 26, 2022
.
posted by nightrecordings at 8:54 PM on December 28, 2022
posted by nightrecordings at 8:54 PM on December 28, 2022
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