This just in, at the start of a week’s worth of gorging on cocktail olives:
Olive & Garlic: Pity the green olive that’s had an entire garlic clove shoved into it. It looks so uncomfortable. The best are hand-stuffed, probably by the kind of women who can, through sheer force of will, get their feet into shoes the next size down when their own isn’t available. And is it worth it? You can’t really taste the garlic; it just lends a slightly sinister texture, like a chemically softened bone. Better to marinate the olives in garlic and oil. — Niki Segnit, The Flavour Thesaurus
Indeed.
Agreed. Although, taking a nice green olive and stuffing a pickled garlic clove in there is pretty delicious in a martini.