Garlic Connoisseurs Take Bite Out of ‘Stinking Rose’

After standing in line for ice cream on a blistering Sunday afternoon, Gail Bloxberg took a big bite, savored the taste, and smiled.

“Ah, I can feel the bad breath already surging out,” she said of her garlic ice cream cone.

On the second day of the weekend Garlic Festival in Westwood, Bloxberg had ignored the garlic-laced offerings from more than 30 restaurants, the documentary on the history of garlic and even the Chateau de Garlic wine from Gilroy.

“This is the one thing I had to do,” the real estate broker from Calabasas said, biting into the cone.

The pungent fumes from nature’s “stinking rose” enveloped the Federal Building’s parking lot, where the ninth annual festival was staged, and spread several blocks down Veteran Avenue.

But the smell of garlic, a social pariah in most situations, seemed the last concern of the thousands of aficionados who wolfed down giant prawns, sausages, Caesar salad and garlic calamari.

Instead, most spoke of the benefits of the aromatic clove. “In my experience, garlic inspires people to lose a few inhibitions, shall we say,” said Ken Frank, owner of La Toque restaurant.

Perennial health enthusiast Gypsy Boots, proclaiming he had “eaten garlic for 80 years, and I’m 81,” danced to the music of a rock band, shaking a tambourine and twirling a garlic lei around his neck. Garlic had cured his bursitis years ago, he claimed. “Now I throw a football harder and farther than Joe Montana.”

Injecting a tone of seriousness, John Heinerman, a medical anthropologist from Salt Lake City, offered health books and brochures instead of food at his booth. Garlic is high in sulfur, which helps normalize blood pressure, prevent cancer and lower cholesterol, he said.

“For hypertension, garlic is really good,” Heinerman said, then added wryly: “Stress and strain cause high blood pressure. People are the cause of stress and strain. You take a lot of garlic, and that will keep away the people who cause the stress and strain that send your blood pressure up.”

Some foods were created for the festival, which will donate 15% of the net proceeds to the American Legion Post No. 8, Heal the Bay and Phoenix House, a drug rehabilitation center.

The garlic chocolate chip cookies offered by King’s Cafe of West Hollywood were one example. Randy Shafton of Beverly Hills bit into one, chewed and shook her head in disappointment.

“It tastes like a chocolate chip cookie,” she said.

“You’ve probably been eating too much garlic,” responded Gary Levitt of King’s. “Your mouth can’t taste it anymore.”

The garlic ice cream’s creator, Fred Peterson of San Luis Obispo, said he had made it especially for the festival and did not offer it regularly at his Slo-Maid ice cream stores. “It’s not a big seller.”

Garlic ice cream is made, he said, by marinating minced garlic overnight with the sweet cream base of ice cream, then freezing the result. “You strain out the minced garlic before you freeze it, though,” Peterson said, “so people aren’t biting into the minced pieces.”

Bloxberg, eating her cone, said it “tastes like vanilla and garlic.” If she does not consume more in the future, she added, it will not be the fault of the garlic.

“I would not make a habit of ordering this,” she said. “I don’t like vanilla that much.”