For about two-and-a-half years of my life, from the age of 12-14, my dad was responsible for cooking dinner for himself, my brother, and I. My dad falls neatly into many of the stereotypes about a “manly” relationship with food—he loves meat, hates spinach and mushrooms, and before he assumed the role of family cook, his primary food preparation responsibility was grilling steaks. Consequently, his repertoire drew heavily on the few, simple dishes he had picked up in his 20s and beyond—a quasi-weekly rotation of meatloaf, spaghetti and meatballs, Italian sausage-and-pepper subs, and beef stroganoff and pasta-roni from the box.
But the real star of the show was my dad’s college favorite: lemon-garlic chicken. The dish is very simple, consisting of chicken breasts baked in the oven with lemon, minced garlic, and olive oil. Nothing special, except for one thing—the garlic always, without fail, turned a bright, almost fluorescent blue in the oven. The blue compound left little stains on the flesh of the pale chicken breast, and the whole dish ended up looking like some sort of sci-fi creation. This was before the age of smartphones, so nobody really thought to “google it,” and I’m not really sure how we decided it was safe to eat. It tasted normal enough, even if the garlicky flavor was a bit overpowering, so we continued to eat it almost once a week for those two-and-a-half years. The blue garlic never passed unremarked, but always remained a mystery.
After we moved in with my stepmom, who is a fantastic cook, my dad’s lemon-garlic chicken disappeared from the dinner menu. The dish quickly became a source of family lore—when eating chicken and rice with roasted garlic we would reminisce, “hey dad, remember when you used to make us that blue chicken every week? So weird.” Somehow, we left it a mystery until very recently when I came across an article on the “Serious Eats” blog about blue/green garlic. Apparently, the same chemical precursors that make garlic pungent can react with each other and with certain amino acids to form a blue/green pigment. This reaction occurs most frequently with older garlic and in the presence of an acid, like lemon juice, and the blue garlic becomes more pungent, but perfectly harmless. The mystery may be solved, but I have cooked and eaten a lot of dishes with lemon and garlic since those days, and I have never since seen the garlic turn blue. My dad’s cooking may not be diverse or complex, but nobody can say it isn’t consistent.
Photo by: Cindi Farr
Emily graduated from Yale University with a B.S. in geology. Don't ask her about rocks though, she is interested in the intersection of fisheries, fisherfolk, and climate change.