Honestly, it’s life changing is a regular series where we talk about the weird and wonderful possessions we can’t imagine life without. Think of it as an ode to the mundane, bizarre and, sometimes, wholly unnecessary products in our lives.
I didn’t think I’d lived a particularly sheltered life until I discovered that the humble garlic press existed at the ripe old age of 24.
My early youth sometimes involved me watching my parents chop garlic cloves finely with a large, glinting knife (boy do I know how to live) – and I had gone on to continue the trend. I’d spent years carefully chopping garlic cloves into tiny pieces, trying not to cut the tips of my fingers off.
I’d then spend hours afterwards repeatedly washing my hands, trying to free myself of the clingy aroma. Don’t get me wrong, I love the smell of garlic in cooking, but once your belly is full and you’re cracking on with life, you don’t want to be repeatedly hit with that pungent scent.
Until, that is, I discovered the Zyliss ‘Susi’ garlic press. Or Suze, as I like to call her.
It was one of the first times my partner had cooked me a meal. We were chatting in the kitchen and all of a sudden he pulled this magnificent utensil out of his top drawer... and no, that’s not a euphemism.
I watched as he carefully placed a garlic clove into one of two handles and placed a spiked hood down on top of it, before clamping the handles together. I watched in amazement, with gleaming eyes, as tiny bits of garlic oozed out of small holes in one of the handles. You have no idea how much that moment stuck with me and how wonderful it was to watch this act of simple magnificence unfold.
What completely blew me away was the discovery of a secondary element – a little hair brush-like implement which pulls the garlic skin out of the contraption. You simply stick the brush spines through the holes on the outside and it pops the skin out, easy peasy. It means you don’t have to deal with the stinky fingers that would come from trying to claw the clove’s skin out manually with your nails. In short, life changing.
I was also impressed by how easy it is to squeeze. I’m not exactly Mr Muscle and I found pressing the garlic bulbs to be a pretty effortless process.
Date night after date night, I spent so much time ogling and remarking on my boyfriend’s garlic press that he bought me one for my 25th birthday, which I still treasure to this day.
Obviously no utensil is perfect and washing the damn thing can be a bit arduous – sometimes chunks of garlic get stuck in the holes and no amount of prodding with the plastic ‘hair brush’ can fish them out. What’s more, a few of the spines on the brush recently bent so it doesn’t work quite as well as it used to.
Despite this I still use it daily... and why wouldn’t I? It makes food preparation and cooking a doddle. As someone who gets quite stressed when cooking, it’s also lowered kitchen-induced anxiety a treat because I’m no longer faffing around trying to finely chop cloves.
So if you too have lived a sheltered, garlic press-free existence (or you owned one but didn’t have the magical brush that comes with it), I really hope you considering inviting this bad boy (RRP £12.99) into your home – and your heart.
Update: the article previous stated that this garlic press was £7.99, which was correct at the time of editing. We have included the RRP but prices fluctuate on Amazon.
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