The director recommends that, when the film is shown, a toaster oven containing several heads of garlic be turned on in the rear of the theater, unbeknownst to the audience, with the intended result that approximately halfway through the showing the entire theater will be filled with the smell of garlic.

[3] The title is a shortened form of the saying "Garlic is as good as ten mothers... for keeping the girls away.

"[4] Robert Taylor for the Oakland Tribune called the film "an intoxicating mixture of food and music, serious and comic styles.

"[6][7] The Academy Film Archive preserved Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers in 1999.

[8] In Blank's 1982 film Burden of Dreams, a documentary chronicling the filming of Fitzcarraldo, director Werner Herzog and other crew members can be seen wearing "Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers" T-shirts.