Maturity and Onions
I was one of those finicky kids – a picky eater. In a house full of fresh food, home cooked dinners, baked goods, and meat – including fish and game – I wanted food only from a bag, box, or can.
I adored tinned ravioli and was confident that that guy really was a chef of world-renown reputation. I thought Kraft dinner was the height of an excellent eating experience. I felt that mock chicken loaf was superior to the product it partially resembled in name only.
Admittedly, I was not a child of great culinary taste.
Throughout my formative years, I held degrees of dislike for certain foods. In some ways, much like the faux-chicken product I so loved, my parents both mocked and indulged me in my limited tastes. Most times, I was allowed to abstain from eating the things I disliked the most – like fish, rabbit, or the dreaded turr. Sometimes I was awarded tinned treats in my Christmas stocking – akin to winning the lotto in my mind. And one Easter Sunday, I remember being served a very adult-like ‘macaroni casserole’ that mom made while she also cooked a turkey, ham, numerous sides, and desserts for the rest of the family.
Like any largish family (there are seven of us altogether), many of the chores had to do with the acquisition, storage, and cooking of food. Mom took the lion’s share of the food related duties, along with the most onerous task – the protein. I didn’t have to worry much about butchering or cooking beef, chicken, pork, moose, or, gods forbid – fish. But as we grew up we all got some amount of kitchen chores.
For me, my kitchen duties started with the aftermath – clearing and dishes. Not long after, they expanded to include some of the prep work. Barring the innate clumsiness I enjoy with knives, I was okay with the cleaning, peeling, and chopping of the vegetables. For the most part…except for the onions.
Of all the vegetables I was introduced to or met in my growing years, there was none that I held a sustained disdain for more than the onion.
I refused to eat them. I hated to peel them. And the smell of them cooking drove me to my room in avoidance. They were odious and odorous. They had a clinging peel and layers of slimy membrane. Their smell made you cry and sniffle. Their scent stayed on your fingers even after repeated soapy scalding washings. They were disgusting and I detested them.
But I knew they were never going away.
They would always be in a bag or net somewhere – lurking in the cupboard, hanging with the potatoes. Not just in our house, but in the houses of our extended family and even at my friends’ homes. They were everywhere – everybody had them. I was appalled to find that even corner stores – the provider of my beloved manna from bag, box and can – sold onions. This was a paradox to my immature mind.
I was the only one in my family who felt that way about the versatile vegetable. Everybody else loved them. The many full frying pans of the pungent plant that never made it to the final product were frequent evidence of that fact. My father and brothers would be drawn to the kitchen when a frying pan of onions began their journey. Like piranhas, they decimated and dwindled the pan’s level with each unnecessary pass through the room.
They would spoon, swipe, and swallow the succulent slices. They would chomp away while trying to spread the sparse remains over the pan to cover the effects of their assault, in vain of course. Many times, no golden bits would make it to their intended destination. And sustained attacks such as these did not go unnoticed to those tasked with their preparation and preservation.
Each time this happened, I would have to peel and slice more of the oozing buggers with their strange white blood. Then, given the previous batterings, they had to be diligently cooked and vigilantly watched until they reached their intended purpose. After standing repeated witness to this carnage, I began to wonder if I had been hasty (or perhaps even wrong) in my assessment. It seemed that I was alone in my disparagement of the powerful layered globe.
Of course, my contempt had not gone unnoticed by my family and I was teased accordingly by all and sundry. But given my limited taste, this was nothing new. My mother initially and consistently summed up my distaste with the phrase, “When you are mature, you will like onions.”
Yeah – right, my mind said. And the scrunch of my young nose mirrored the sentiment. That wasn’t happening. Liking onions was not some kind of developmental milestone to be ticked off on a list of items that define ‘maturity.’ Even my fledgling mind knew this logic was deeply flawed. It was a short leap from that certainty to believing that there wasn’t anything wrong with my pre-adolescent palate. Onions were disgusting and mom, along with everybody else, was wrong.
Or so I thought.
I don’t remember the date, but I do I remember the opposing forces of the day – the cold and the warmth. It was fall and the day was typically harsh – damp, cold and grey. Our kitchen was cozy and the smell was particularly cloying – enticing, warm and inviting. I had walked home from school and came into the kitchen. It was unusually void of family right now but full of the smell of onions. They were sitting in a cast-iron frying pan, simmering away in a gentle foam of butter. All by themselves – unattended and vulnerable. The presence of those unharassed bits was evidence that my brothers were not yet home.
After ditching my coat and schoolbag, I returned to the kitchen. I was cold and I was drawn to the heat. And, for the first time, to the smell of the onions. I stood over them, shivering slightly and rubbing my hands to try to bring them back to feeling again. My face was enveloped in a soft cloud of buttery onion-scented air. For the first time in my young life, I wanted to taste that smell.
I picked up a spoon.
I dipped it in, extracting a minuscule amount worthy of a fussy eater’s pseudo-attempt at trying something new. Even with no one to witness the event. I let it cool a bit before I gingerly tasted it, pulling back my lips and baring my teeth as if the glistening mixture was going to burn like fire.
I put the spoon in my mouth, deposited the contents, chewed, tasted onions, swallowed them, and then thought a bit.
It wasn’t like an epiphany of maturity. It was more like I tipped my mental hat in acknowledgement that onions might be…‘Okay.’ As my mouth and stomach further processed the portion, my mind thought perhaps another taste – just to do justice to this experiment. ‘Okay’ easily got upgraded to ‘not bad.’
I don’t know if I was fighting the recognition of impending maturity or rebelling against the prospect of being wrong, but I decided to keep my onion experience to myself. I put the spoon down and walked away. Content with my new knowledge and childishly sure I could keep it secret.
But it’s hard to hide a habit like onions. It didn’t take long for my family to notice their inclusion in my meagre meal repertoire. Soon, I fully came out of my netting and embraced my inner onion-loving self.
As I grew, so too did my love of that beautiful bulge, that noble nodule, that pungent protuberance, that savoury swelling, that tasty tuber – the lovely onion. The edible was elevated in my estimation. No longer was the onion a minion in the kitchen. For me, it became the king.
Raw and crisp, or soft and caramelized, sautéed, baked or fried, souped or saladed, on top of or inside, accompanying eggs, with peppers, or on steak, I can’t imagine them not in my kitchen or absent from my plate. Whether purple, white, or yellow; strong, mild, or mellow – the onion is my savoury maker – it makes almost anything taste better!
But I digress in my praise of this aromatic gastric – I had a point to make in this particular address.
In life, we don’t always like to take the advice of our elders, or acknowledge the wisdom of their experience. And in this case, I can safely say that the liking of onions is not a rite of passage or an attainment of actual maturity, but it is definitely a right of palate and an opening to a world of culinary diversity.
In the end, of course, mom was right all along. With maturity comes onions.
©CRodgers