Sunday, August 29, 2010

Is there a vegetable that makes us laugh?

Onions are a food staple in our home, and we tend to buy them at Kwik Star cuz they're sold for 38 cents a pound.  Rarely do we fix a meal that doesn't include the onion. 

The first time we saw the deep-fried bloomin' onion was at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri quite a few years back.  The vendors were frying them in 50-gallon iron vats of oil and couldn't keep up serving the long line of customers waiting and drooling.  The two of us shared one, and that's all it took for me to be a bloomin' onion aficionado!    The chain of Outback restaurants serve them now, so we don't have to drive down to southern Missouri to get one!

As I understand, onions have been around for about 5,000 years.  They're eaten all around the globe and are the second most traded vegetable, trailing behind the tomato.  When I was a little girl, we'd eat fresh green onions out of the garden, and we dipped them in salt.  Back then we didn't know anything about high sodium contents, nor did anyone care.  The salt enhanced the flavor, so we ate them with salt.  Man, were they good.  To this day, I bring home bunches of green onions from the supermarket and cut them up in salads and omelets.   Green stems and all.

Back in the 1990s my pen pal came to visit us from half way across the continent.  I had asked her if any of her family had allergies to any foods.  When she told me that she wouldn't or couldn't eat onions, I about fell backward on the floor.  How in god's green earth were we going to cook without onions! 

Red onions add color to salads, and I use them quite a bit.  Once in awhile a person buys a bag of onions that are awfully strong, to the point of not being very good.  The Vidalia, of course, is very mild and sweet and perhaps the onion of choice.  Some onions make a person cry.  The Onion Police say that it helps to put a teaspoon in one's mouth when peeling an onion, and that will keep one from shedding those stinging tears.  Go figure.

We're going to be baking a chicken at our house today, and we're going to make homemade dressing to go with it.  There will be diced onions in the dressing, of course.  A good old-fashioned Sunday meal.  Oh, how I remember Sunday dinners when we were first married.  We'd go to either of our parents' homes and feast (always had second helpings) on our mothers' meals.......we didn't know what we had until now when we don't have it.  But, we're all grown up and can make our own special meals that were lovingly inspired by those who came before us.

Food seems to be a universal thread that ties humanity together.  All the unique cuisines to share and to experiment and to enjoy.  How appropriate the prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread."

Trivia

Did you ever wonder what the WD stands for in WD-40?  WD is an abbreviation for Water Displacer.