Next they'll be objecting to tomatoes

I can talk all I want about bad ingredient combinations and bad cooking techniques, but I’m always going to find some recipes “damned” simply because they include an ingredient I don’t like. I try (sometimes) to be rational about this. Just because I don’t like canned tuna doesn’t mean that a dish that calls for it is bad; well, no, I can’t quite go that far. Dishes that call for canned tuna are bad. But you see my point.

It looks like some chefs in Italy are carrying this single-ingredient aversion to a rather un-Italian extreme: There’s a rising movement against garlic. This may sound ridiculous, but the critics are gaining ground, and count former premier Silvio Berlusconi among their number. Arguing against its objectionable smell, the anti-garlic forces complain that it’s a matter of fairness: “They put garlic in almost any dish — with meat, with fish, everywhere. It’s not politically correct to impose garlic on everybody,” says the leader of one of Berlusconi’s media outlets.

I love garlic, but I don’t put it in absolutely everything. I suppose if you don’t like a food that happens to be a star of your national cuisine, you might get a bit touchy about it.