Food Fight

Why Do Onions Make You Cry?
A Sob Sister’s Report

The Shakers, lovers of vegetables that they were, especially favored onions, not only for their taste but also as a cure for heart disease, rheumatism, diabetes, and baldness. They believed that a spoonful of roasted onions daily would ensure complete recovery. The 17th-century herbalist John Gerard recommended rubbing onion juice on a bald head to grow hair.

Today, onions have attained superstar status for their healthful and tasteful properties, but there’s still the problem of the tears. When you chop or slice a raw onion, sulfur compounds are released as a gas (technically propanethiol S-oxide, known as a lachrymator agent, which means something that makes you cry). Tears form when the gas reacts with the moisture in your eyes to form sulfuric acid, which burns.

Most cookbooks offer suggestions for lessening the impact of the onion fumes. Here are a few ideas:

• Partially freeze or at least refrigerate the onions before chopping.
• Chop onions under running water.
• Hold a piece of bread in your mouth to absorb the fumes while you chop.
• Breathe only through your mouth (or not at all, if you can hold your breath for a long time or if the onion is small enough).
• Hold a stainless steel spoon in your teeth while chopping. (This will make you look like a benign pirate.)
• Place the onion first in boiling water for 8 seconds (another source says 30 seconds) and then plunge into cold water; then peel and chop.
• Wear safety goggles, a scuba diver’s mask, or even large sunglasses or reading glasses.
• Chop them in a food processor (this can backfire if you over-process, which tears up the onions and releases extra fumes!).
• The final suggestion, and probably the only one that really works and isn’t a lot of hassle, is this: Immerse yourself in the destructive element, as Conrad would say. That is, chop lots of onions. You will develop a tolerance for them and the fumes won’t bother you so much.

Do you have any other tried-and-true ideas for dealing with onion tears? Please write to us at foodfights@digitalhearth.com. We’d love to hear from you!

Last Bite

A Halloween Confession

The Shakers maintained that you should always confess the worst thing first. So here is my confession: I hate Halloween. As a shy child, the masks and costumes scared me, the cookies that crumbled in my trick-or-treat bag were never as good as the ones in our cookie jar at home, and it was always cold and damp on Halloween night. My father loved to tell stories about tipping over outhouses when he was a boy, but that didn’t have much appeal (what if I fell in?), and besides, we lived in town and everyone had indoor plumbing.

Then, many years later, I married someone who loves Halloween. Our children love Halloween, even though now they are "too old for it" (i.e., teenagers). I know that at the last minute they’ll figure out a disguise and head for the village to trick-or-treat and have fun with the neighbors. I am a misfit in my own family.

It might be too late, but this year I’m trying to reform myself. Lighten up, that sort of thing. I haven’t told my family yet, but I found some Web sites with the absolute silliest recipes for disgusting Halloween concoctions. (Just go to www.digitalhearth.com and type in "pumpkin" for more Bloodshot Eyeballs and Brain Cookies than you can shake a broomstick at.) I’m going to surprise them. I may even try to make the Haunted Human Heart at www.britta.com/HW/HWr.html#heart and gross everybody out. It’s a scary thought. Now I have to think about a costume . . .