Not The Onion, but about onions

Thoughts on the bulb

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Last night we went to Hart’s. I described everything we ate as being far more subtle than it should have been, but meant that in the best way possible. The green beans, for instance, were done just right, and came with a tonnato sauce poured over it, but it wasn’t too much. I was sort of over tonnato sauce for a second there since it seemed to show up everywhere I went for a solid three years, but Hart’s version brushes up against the border of “fancy ranch dressing,” and it was delightful. We also had the anchovies and poblano peppers over flat bread that took a few seconds to activate, but once it did, total salty and hot bliss. I love it when those two fight it out. And, taking a move out of my playbook, Emily got lamb burger that’s topped with greens. She added anchovies because Hart’s is a wonderful place and gives you that option. It makes the experience unlike anything I’ve ever had. After years of places overdoing it with bacon or foie gras or a fried egg on top of a burger, Hart’s is basically daring each customer to live a little and try something different with anchovies—and it works perfectly. I’ve never had anything like it. But the thing is, as great as the anchovies are, they need the most important part of the burger construction to truly work: onions. Thinly shaved and dressed raw with some herbs, the onions bring out the best in the little fishes. There’s no “I’ll have the burger with the anchovies added, but hold the onions.” You have to go all the way or don’t even bother. It’s another example of the humble onion taking a backseat to the flashier ingredients, but all the while being absolutely vital to the whole operation. The onion is like the writer’s writer or the comedian’s comedian but for vegetables. I wouldn’t say it gets no respect, but it doesn’t quite get the appreciation it deserves.

I think about onions a lot. This week it was kickstarted by a Letter of Recommendation from Iva Dixit about the greatness of a raw onion. Dixit, a self-confessed “grotesquely picky eater” writes:

When cooked, the onion is a sturdy and gracious supporting character that quietly allows the dish to take center stage. But when consumed raw, sprinkled with a little salt and pepper, a bitter alchemy transmutes its heat into an experience so intense that a single bite contains an entire sensory universe.

I read the essay early in the morning after it went up and it seasoned my entire week. I thought about onions a lot. If you eat enough, they’re impossible to escape. If you eat enough, if you really enjoy eating, you know how vital onions are to nearly any experience. Yet it wasn’t until I read Dixit’s essay that I started really thinking about how so many of my own memories begin with raw onions. My grandmother who I didn’t know very well loved them, and a raw onion will make me think of her. I remember being a kid and standing in the kitchen when somebody was cooking, and paying attention to the onion’s experience, from being whole, to the slicing, and then the time in the pan. It shocked me to realize there wasn’t one or even two smells that came out of that experience, but several.

There’s another essay I go back to often. On its face, it might seem like the exact opposite of Dixit’s, but then you think about it and the similarities are obvious. André Aciman’s “Lavender” in his essay collection Alibis is a favorite of mine. It’s about the scent that has traveled with him his entire life. It was his father’s scent, one that Aciman is obsessed with, saving aftershave and cologne bottles that capture a certain feeling brought on by smells that live inside. He writes, “Fragrances linger for decades, and our loved ones may remember us by them, but the legend in each vial clams up the moment we’re gone.”

The two essays remind me of each other because, put together, they add up to one of my own Proustian memories. The onion, like garlic or dill or homemade chicken stock, is one of those scents that will instantly bring me back to not just my own childhood, but a million lives lived before mine. The onion is the great connector, something that every culture comes to understand and work with. It can stand out or sit back, but you won’t forget it. I haven’t, that’s for sure.