I kinda wonder why he didn't try the obvious test and just directly taste the germ by itself. Sure, you'd have to eat raw garlic, but what better way is there to tell?
I get the feeling that Leibovitz (like many others), is a little wary of garlic and perhaps also garlic breath. I don't understand why it's used so sparingly in the US, but it seems to me like it's only fairly recently that people are ok with liking garlic.
At least in my area, I haven't gotten the sense that garlic is really avoided. I use it in almost everything I cook myself. Garlic breath is overrated. It's not really so much worse than the kind of breath you get from most savory foods, at least until you pass a certain threshold. A threshold that some people may have not approached or observed, but I have. Garlic's reputation for halitosis is truly well-earned, but it takes a lot for it to raise past the level of "yeah, you just ate" to "oh my god, you have some sort of condition". My mom has been known to eat raw garlic, by the clove, as a flu remedy. Once you've downed a few fresh cloves it's a whole new animal. It completely replaces your breath with an odor that isn't even quite like garlic itself. If the plant smelled like that no one would ever eat it. Dragon's breath. You also sweat garlic at that point so there's no hiding it.
Believe me, I know. Yeah, maybe it's just where I'm from. New England isn't exactly known for its cuisine. Sure, we've got chowder, beans, seafood, roast beef, etc. But not a-one of those things has more than a clove of garlic in it.Garlic's reputation for halitosis is truly well-earned, but it takes a lot for it to raise past the level of "yeah, you just ate" to "oh my god, you have some sort of condition". My mom has been known to eat raw garlic, by the clove, as a flu remedy. Once you've downed a few fresh cloves it's a whole new animal.