Garlic Cloves Pickled in Miso

He took one of the Excedrins from the counter, regarded it for a moment, then put it into his mouth and began to chew it, slowly and with relish. The taste flooded back like memory, making his saliva squirt in mingled pleasure and unhappiness. A dry, bitter taste, but a compelling one.

Stephen King, The Shining

Jack Torrance’s Excedrin-chewing came to me Friday as I sat on Bay Area Rapid Transit, a migraine roaring my in ears, my purse-sized pill bottle devoid of my favorite otc remedy. I stared bleakly at the ancient Tylenol with Codeine and a few worthless ibuprofren rattling around the bottle. No good, not a one. Good drugs lurked at the bottom of my bag; they were in fact the reason I was on that train to begin with. But the bottle bore John’s name: in my role as loving wife and caregiver, I’d ventured out to pick up a second installment of post-surgery pain medication. And migraine or no, dipping into it would be, as they say in the National Hockey League, unsportsmanlike conduct. Also the merest bit illegal.

Serious meds would have to wait. Thus I, a complete agnostic, began to pray. Mine was the prayer familiar to all who habituate buses, trains, planes, and cabs: the please-don’t-puke-on-public-transit-prayer, aka please-don’t-let-me-barf-on-BART.

Making it home without mishap, I handed John his medications, (legally) drugged myself into a semi-comatose state, and collapsed into bed.

Happily, matters have improved since Friday. The migraine cleared up.  Even better, John has turned the corner toward normalcy, or what passes for it around here.

Which brings us, with nominal transition, to garlic in miso. If 2016 has taught us anything, it’s that we do not inhabit a rational world. Meaning I can leap from discussions of our crummy health to the merits of garlic in miso, and you can follow right along. I mean, David Bowie and Prince are dead. Are we gonna worry about an awkward paragraph transition? Well, you might. Obviously I’m not.

So, maybe some of you are wondering about garlic in miso. This comes to us from Nancy Singleton Hachisu’s Preserving The Japanese Way, an extraordinary book that hasn’t received nearly the attention it deserves. In fact, while I’m up here on my soapbox, neither has Hachisu’s first book, Japanese Farm Food. Both are fascinating, beautifully designed works about Japanese life that read like novels. Buy them. Your life will be the better for it.

Lecture concluded.

The fact that this is scarcely a recipe should only encourage you. The simple act of placing a few garlic cloves in miso is adult play: first you must peel all that garlic, but then you get to slip the cloves into coolly smooth, clay-like miso, a far more defensible act than adult coloring. In a month you’ll be eating amazingly mellow garlic cloves, perhaps with a very adult beverage in hand, marveling at how a few weeks in miso could effect this incredible change.

And that’s the magic here–the miso. Much as I would like to share miso expertise with you, I haven’t any. Instead I direct you to Preserving The Japanese Way, where Nancy Hachisu gives a terrific overview on miso varieties, good brands, where to find them, even how to make miso yourself, a process she assures readers is easier than it looks.

Finding miso-making beyond my capabilities, I purchase Cold Mountain Mellow White “Hawaiian Style” Miso. I don’t know what makes it “Hawaiian,” but I’ve been happy with it.

Remember I mentioned you’ll need to peel lots of garlic cloves? Do not, under any circumstances, buy jars of peeled garlic cloves for this recipe. If you do, you will end up in a bourbonless hell where Simon and Garfunkel Muzak plays on an endless loop and the only reading material is that self-published pseduo-bondage trash.

This is a harsh way of saying the recipe won’t turn out if you use pre-peeled garlic.

So put on some music, pour some wine, and peel your garlic. You’re bored? Your hands smell of garlic? Given recent events, and the bodily fluids I have spent quality time cleaning up, I have no trouble with placidly staring off into space and peeling garlic, whose scent I enjoy.

How much garlic? Hachisu’s recipe calls for four heads of garlic. I say peel as many as you wish, keeping in mind you’ll need enough miso to cover the cloves. A 16-ounce container will cover four reasonably-sized heads–don’t buy elephant garlic–and I prefer using only good-sized cloves, not the eensy ones.But that’s personal taste. I ended up using 3 1/2 heads of garlic, netting me 27 nicely-sized cloves.

So peel your cloves, tuck them into miso, and forget about them for at least a month. During that time, the miso mellows the garlic, gentling its bite. By the time you wipe the miso off, you’ve got an addictive yet guiltless nibble, perfect with drinks, for adding to salads, or just snacking. You won’t be left breathing fire, just reaching for more.