this food bully’s reign of terror must be stopped
Where’s Timer when you need him? You remember Timer, right? The cartoon guy who looked like Mr. Peanut if Mr. Peanut was a naked walnut. Timer was among the first food police. At least the first one I remember. And when he wasn’t hankering for a hunk of cheese, he was getting help from the Bod Squad’s Louis the Lifeguard in advising us to not drown our food.
The villains of those days were mayo, salt, ketchup, and “goop.” Cheese was actually a hero. But let’s be honest… it kind of still is, isn’t it? It isn’t Captain Marvel (she would be bacon); it’s more like Hancock. You love it even though you know it really isn’t good for you. But this is not about super heroes. Or cheese.
There’s a new villain in kitchens across the world, and it’s even more nefarious. This one isn’t just drowning our food. It’s a flat-out bully and it needs to be stopped. No, I’m not talking about ranch dressing. Ranch dressing is certainly among the assholes of the food world, but it’s no bully. The bully in question isn’t even a condiment. Or a sauce. Or a goop of any kind, although I suppose you could make a really disgusting bully-pudding out of it if you wanted to. The bully I’m talking about is the evil red onion. Mmm. Red onion pudding. Sounds delicious, doesn’t it?
I suppose now is as good a time as any to admit that by most accounts, I’m a picky eater—when I choose to eat. I used to argue with people when they called me on it. My rebuttal was that were only a few foods I just didn’t care for. At some point, I realized that if I actually listed the foods I don’t like, the length of my list might resemble the list of banned books in Bomont (Oklahoma, if you believe the internet). So yes, I am a picky eater. But that doesn’t make ranch dressing less an asshole. And it certainly doesn’t make red onion any less a bully.
I don’t understand the fascination with this filthy tasting vegetable-from-hell. What sort of dirt does it have on nearly every recipe author that makes you add it to almost everything? It’s as though you were writing a song and ran out of new words to use, so you just decided to say “Naaaah-naah-naah-na-na-na-naaaah, na-na-na-naaaah…” over and over again. Sorry, Beatles fans, but the end of that song is a lyrical red onion.
Worse yet, it’s like running scenes in Tom Cruise movies, and just as bad. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say that like it’s a fact. Some of you might think Tom has a lovely run. I think it’s goofy to the point of absurd. It actually makes me laugh at inappropriate times during his movies. Like when he’s running through the tunnel in Jerry Maguire. It’s supposed to be a touching moment when he realizes how much he loves Dorothy Boyd. But the run is so goofy that I find it hilarious. And are we supposed to assume he sprinted all the way back to the house to melt Dorothy’s heart with the poetry of, “You complete me”? But back to the topic at hand. After all, I speculate Tom Cruise is more ranch dressing than red onion. Despite the goofy run.
What makes red onion a bully is that it destroys the taste of anything else you cook with it. I imagine even ranch dressing with red onion tastes like red onion, although I’d sooner drink hemlock in an avocado shake than test that theory.
But go ahead. Try it with anything. Eat a burger with red onion and everything on the burger tastes like red onion. Take the red onion off and guess what? Everything still tastes like red onion. Even the burger itself. Why? Because red onion is a food bully. There’s no such thing as a “pinch” of red onion because it’s a foul, flavor-stealing parasite. It knocked every bit of flavor out of that burger you were about to eat and that burger was once part of a grown-ass cow!
This isn’t really about burgers, either, but let’s roll with it for a moment. I know there are people out there who don’t like other common burger toppings. Take lettuce or tomatoes, for example. But not cheese—we covered that earlier. Lettuce and tomato never bullied a burger. If you remove them, you still have a burger. So, I call upon the ghost of Timer to pick his walnut-looking carcass up, point his cane accusingly at the red onion, and stand up to this bully once and for all. Grab Louis the Lifeguard and the rest of the Bod Squad for reinforcements. Enough is enough.
Cheers.
