Family crisis: Pregnant family member cannot tolerate garlic!!!!!!!

[japple]

My nephew's SO is pregnant and the main thing she cannot tolerate is garlic. She comes to our family dinner every Sunday with nephew. Our family LOVES garlic and we're all feeling a bit hamstrung that our favorite recipes can't be made with garlic if pregnant SO is present. Can our family survive this crisis?

[Siwsan]

1. Are you sure she isn't a vampire?

I can't even begin to imagine cooking without garlic. Come Spring, my house will be surrounded by garlic plants. Heck, I smash and swallow a clove of garlic, every morning, for the health benefit.

My heart goes out to you........

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. Is the garlic intolerance from being pregnant?

I hope so, since it will go away once she has the baby. Otherwise, this is an awful dilemma. Here's my solution. Persuade the nephew to move to Minneapolis, which (at least when I lived there in the early 1980s) had an Italian restaurant that was famous and beloved for not using any garlic. Almost no garlic is used in restaurants there. Then you can visit them, they'll fix non-garlic food, which you will happily consume, and all will be well.

[Luciferous]

3. I have a garlic intolerance and it sucks. I just omit it from recipes...

[hedda_foil]

4. The intolerance may go away once she's past the first trimester or so.

I had this problem with a couple of foods when I was pregnant last century. It was the odor rather than the food itself that triggered my nausea, even though I usually loved the foods and smells involved. Find out if it's the odor (in which case, you may have to resort to bland meals for the whole family until the symptom passes) or eating the food itself (which would allow you to fix her dinner without garlic but let the rest of you enjoy it).

[japple]

6. Thanks for this suggestion. It makes a lot of sense to me given our

family "sensativities."

[hlthe2b]

5. Does she realize that British medical studies show garlic in pregnancy can lower blood pressure

and possibly reduce the risk of pre-eclampsia in pregnancy... Significant benefits, I'd say.

Of course, if she can't stomach it, that's a different matter.

Two dishes?

[japple]

8. I don't think that would help her nausea issue! LOL

We are just working around it.

[hlthe2b]

10. two dishes.... (with and without)

[japple]

11. I have been doing that to some extent, but it's hard with things like

roasted pork loin or marinara sauce. This too will pass, at least we hope it will be over after the baby is born.

[Saviolo]

7. Try replacing garlic with shallots?

They're kind of like if onions and garlic had an offspring. We use them in a lot of things where we want a bit of that bulb-ey flavour without the full strength of garlic or the sharpness of onion.

[japple]

9. That's an idea. I am using onions & leeks for the duration. Will get

shallots next time I go grocery shopping.