Compare prices for fresh garlic across Edmonton retailers.
Garlic is harvested and then cured to dry down for storage, so the bulb in the bin is already dormant and does no further ripening — there is no underripe head to bring around at home, and selection is the whole task whether the garlic is for tonight or for later in the month. Choose a bulb that is firm and plump and feels heavy for its size, wrapped in a dry, tight, unbroken papery skin; a heavy bulb is full of moist, sound cloves, while one that feels light or hollow has dried out inside. Press gently all over: the head should be hard with no give, and the individual cloves should feel solid rather than spongy. Pass over any bulb that is soft or yields under light pressure, that has shrivelled or shrunken cloves, that shows brown or yellow patches or dark powdery spots under the skin, or that has begun to push up a green shoot, all of which mark a head that is aging or breaking down.
Because the quality is fixed at purchase, keeping garlic good is about dry storage rather than ripening. Hold whole bulbs in a cool, dark, well-ventilated spot — an open bowl, a mesh bag, or a paper bag rather than a sealed plastic one — where a sound head keeps for several weeks and often a few months. Do not refrigerate whole bulbs: the cold and damp of the fridge coax garlic into sprouting and encourage mould, so the crisper drawer shortens its life rather than extending it. Once a head is broken open the loose cloves dry out or sprout within a week or so, so break off only what you need; peeled or chopped garlic is the exception and should be covered, refrigerated, and used within a few days. A clove that has grown a small green shoot down its centre is still safe and usable, just a little sharper and more bitter, and the green germ can simply be cut out.
A bulb is past its useful window when the cloves soften, turn rubbery or spongy, or feel hollow and rattle loose inside their skins, and when sprouting is well advanced into long green shoots and the clove around them has gone shrunken and pithy. Discard garlic that shows soft sunken spots, yellow or brown staining through the flesh, a dusty black soot beneath the papery wrapper, or fuzzy blue-green mould; a sour or sharply off smell, distinct from garlic's normal clean pungency, is another clear cue to throw it out rather than cut around it, since the rot and mould spread through the bulb.
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