Is there a vegetable, or any food at all, as ubiquitous as the onion? It’s used in every kind of cuisine around the world, in a myriad of forms and shapes and colors.
Most people I know don’t even question the onion’s role in food — it’s just always there. I frequently hear, “Oh, onions are what gives food flavor. Without them, it doesn’t taste like anything.”
I beg to differ.
I realize I’m in the minority here when I say, not only are onions one of the most evil and hateful foods in existence, they are, for the most part, completely unnecessary. Yes, I said “for the most part.” I’ll get to that in a minute.
Some of my earliest memories are of me being in the kitchen with my parents, and watching with dread as my mom pulled out an onion and set it on the counter. I would beg and plead with her not to cut it, but of course she would anyway. This would send me running to my room, near tears and filled with indignation the way only a child can be, as I hid from the nauseating smell which seemed to permeate the entire house.
The funny thing about this story is, I’m not exaggerating at all. To this day, the aroma of a freshly sliced onion elicits a visceral reaction in me and I have to fight to keep the contents of my stomach where they belong. Were said onion, or any other food that happened to mingle with it, to accidentally make its way into my mouth, the fight becomes twice as hard.
It’s made a variety of seemingly normal food-related activities more difficult through the years. Especially when I was younger, going to someone else’s house to eat was nerve-wracking because it’s incredibly offensive to pick things out of the food someone cooked for you and push it to the side of the plate.
Eating at a restaurant, you get stuck with very few “safe” foods that are usually onion-free. Still, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve ordered a burger or a salad and specified, no onions please, only to have my food come out covered in them. Or how many times a stray piece will find its way into the iceberg lettuce on the sandwich I got at a deli, or hidden under the cheese on a take-out pizza, causing me to promptly lose my appetite.
Nowadays, I’ve adapted somewhat, and I rarely eat out because I love to cook, eliminating much of the issue. I’ll still politely decline on a salad with raw onions in it. I just can’t eat it. My husband likes them, but he’s more of an “eat to live” type so it’s no big deal if I don’t include them in my recipes.
There are, as I mentioned above, a couple of dishes where I actually do agree that without onions, it won’t be as good as it could be. The first one is salsa. Since I have such an aversion to chopping onions, I don’t make it myself, but rather buy it in a jar. Still, I try my best to avoid the onions and then, not look too much at what I’m eating so I don’t scare myself. I know, I’m a freak.
The other food that without a doubt is no good without onions is soup. Not any old soup, but real, homemade vegetable soup, which is better than anything you’ll ever get from any restaurant, and infinitely more delicious and healthy than whatever you can get in a can.
The reason that I can eat onions in this instance is the fact that I cook them with a couple of other vegetables, such as potatoes and carrots, in nothing more than salted water, and puree it to create a base for the rest of the ingredients. This way, the onion adds the much needed flavor to an otherwise bland soup, without me actually having to bite into any chunks of the stuff, which is the worst part.
It’s still difficult, but I’ve learned a little trick that allows me to quickly peel and chop an onion in quarters to throw it in the pot to simmer without nearly passing out from holding my breath: I put it in the freezer for about 15 minutes first. My dad uses this trick to keep his eyes from watering, so I figured I would give it a shot, and lo and behold, it really does keep those noxious fumes at bay.
Consider this long-winded rant an introduction of sorts. I’ll probably leave onions in the recipes I post here, because I know most people like them, or at least tolerate them, and onions are obviously good for your health. Still, expect to see the word “optional” right next to them in the ingredient list, because for me, they really are.
Clacked by Cate Cropp
on Apr 20, 2009 @ 14:00 EST5EDT
Wow, I’m pretty impressed: you actually do hate onions more than I do. I pick them out of dishes, or if I have to cook with them, I puree them to all hell, but I’m not grossed out by them. I can be around them and cut them with no problem, and if raw onions are on a salad or whatever, I have no problem picking them off.
Yeah, that’s how most people who dislike onions are, that I’ve met anyway. I wish I could do that too, it would make things so much easier.
Your extreme aversion to onions makes me wonder if this is a primarily psychological reaction to them, especially when you relate that some of your earliest memories are of you being in the kitchen with your parents when the dreaded onion is pulled out. Sigmund Freud would probably have a field day with that kind of imagery! Sincerely, Dr. Joyce Brothers.
But seriously, while I can’t relate in terms of onions, I have always had an aversion to melons of any kind. The mere scent of ANY kind of melon brings out the gag reflex in me and since almost all fruit salads – in the U.S. anyway – contain the cost effective melon, I am unable to ever order fruit salads because even if they remove the melon from the salad, I can still smell that it’s been there and my appetite is immediately turned off. It even extends to the papaya which, to me, has a flavor similar to melon. (Now I wonder what Sigmund Freud might say about that!)
It probably all comes down to extremely individual, visceral responses to different things. Guess that’s part of what makes us all unique
So what would you all say to my severe mayophobia? I won’t go within 10 feet of anything with mayonnaise in it — talk about a nausea-inducer! The weirdest part? Completely hereditary. My aunt, who I take after in many ways, has the very same aversion.
Interesting! I think there’s good ground for a scientific study here!
On a related front, there is much historic reference to women having cravings when they are pregnant. I won’t go into the details of my particular cravings here as they require too much explanation, but I did develop an aversion during pregnancy (nearly 8 years ago) that I still can’t quite shake. When I was pregnant, every time the thought of “chicken” came into my mind, I always pictured poached chicken breast. What’s weird about that is that I had never eaten (and still have never eaten) poached chicken breast in my life, and yet during pregnancy, any time the word “chicken” was mentioned, I envisioned a poached chicken breast in a soupy broth and I immediately became nauseated. It has only been in the last year that I have started to overcome this image, but I still gag when I think about cooking chicken in any moist heat method (poached, steamed, etc.).
I can’t explain it since I did not have this aversion prior to pregnancy. It’s just plain weird!
OK, very strange… I too had an irrational aversion to chicken while pregnant. I could stomach chicken if it was chopped up in a salad or something like that, but if you put a whole chicken breast on my plate I’d run screaming from the room; it was so gross to me. It went away shortly after I had the baby though.
I’ve thought many times that it probably is psychological, oh well. Melons, that totally sucks. I hate papayas too, they ruin fruit salad because the flavor is so strong. They don’t give me the gags though.
I totally get the mayo aversion, although it doesn’t bother me much. That is strange and hilarious that you and your aunt both have it though.
When I was pregnant, I had an aversion to just about everything except fruits and starchy foods, but the worst was mushrooms and peppers. It took me a LONG time after to get used to the idea of eating them again.
Dude – I HEAR you. I can’t go near a raw onion. Having one of the hidden salad onions make it to my mouth pretty much guarantees I’m going to be heaving at the dinner table. I can add them to chili and soup if they are diced fine, but that’s about it. Seafood is my other nemesis. There are many foods I dislike but can still eat, but onions and seafood of any kind (all fish is fishy, people, and you can’t convince my palate otherwise) will pretty much guarantee full on retching (as my husband knows after accidentally feeding me a shrimp).