Garlic is very cheap. Any dish that I cook that undergoes longer or slow cooking that has garlic in the recipe will contain far more garlic than you could ever add if you minced it - but it will not have that harsh whiff or acrid garlicky taste. I just peel a small handful of cloves and either bash them with my fist or squash them with the flat of a knife. In they go, more or less whole but busted a bit, and in that state they release their lovely fragrant sweetness slowly and gently into the dish. Finely-sliced garlic is best in pasta sauces that sauté in the same time as the pasta boils. Garlic mincing is just brutal. Almost as brutal as using dried basil. That stuff should be illegal.