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Speaking of onions, were pre-modern onions less sharp-tasting? Reading Don Quixote, the combination of bread and onions comes up a few times as pretty standard traveler food, and from context it doesn't seem like the characters were roasting the onions. Just biting into a raw onion for lunch isn't impossible, of course, but it'd make a lot more sense if they were different cultivars from the onions we use the most today.
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Apr 7, 2021 21:57
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cheetah7071 posted:Speaking of onions, were pre-modern onions less sharp-tasting? Reading Don Quixote, the combination of bread and onions comes up a few times as pretty standard traveler food, and from context it doesn't seem like the characters were roasting the onions. Just biting into a raw onion for lunch isn't impossible, of course, but it'd make a lot more sense if they were different cultivars from the onions we use the most today. Well, if you could have seen the thick, meaty slices of onion people over here put on raw minced meat, which they first put on bread, you don't even need pre-modern onions. It's apparently really tasty to bite into raw onion! Besides, Don Quixote was released in two parts in 1605 and 1615, so those onions aren't pre-modern in any case.
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Apr 7, 2021 22:24
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Libluini posted:Well, if you could have seen the thick, meaty slices of onion people over here put on raw minced meat, which they first put on bread, you don't even need pre-modern onions. It's apparently really tasty to bite into raw onion! Sure pre-modern isn't the right word, but it's still 400 years ago, plenty of time for cultivars to shift
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Apr 7, 2021 22:25
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cheetah7071 posted:Just biting into a raw onion for lunch isn't impossible Have you never had raw onion in a salad? People eat raw onions and raw chillis + other stuff as a salad/side dish in some countries.
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Apr 7, 2021 22:29
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 Just bit into one to try it. The thing to remember about all Alliums the sulfuric compounds that hold the flavor are inside the cell walls, that's why a full clove of garlic tastes more like an onion, whereas crushed garlic is very, well garlicky. So if you just bite in it's sort of just vaguely sweet with a hint of oniony flavor
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Apr 7, 2021 22:32
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cheetah7071 posted:Sure pre-modern isn't the right word, but it's still 400 years ago, plenty of time for cultivars to shift They don't really need to though, sweet, sharp and mild onions weren't all invented by shifty cultivars, they were a thing back then, too. Also, people here today don't have trouble eating raw onion, even the sharp ones
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Apr 7, 2021 22:32
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I haven't read it, I definitely should, but perhaps the writer made a point out of them eating a less than luxurious diet.
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Apr 7, 2021 22:37
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perhaps I have been an onion coward all my life
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Apr 7, 2021 22:38
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Ola posted:I haven't read it, I definitely should, but perhaps the writer made a point out of them eating a less than luxurious diet. I'm sure onions are quite tasty when the alternative is starvation.
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Apr 7, 2021 22:40
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cheetah7071 posted:perhaps I have been an onion coward all my life I would not be surprised if they weren't eating the sharpest possible cultivar but I also expect if you're eating bread and onions as your primary diet, you are getting whatever onion is cheapest and not visibly rotty.
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Apr 7, 2021 22:41
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Ola posted:I haven't read it, I definitely should, but perhaps the writer made a point out of them eating a less than luxurious diet. I mean it definitely wasn't supposed to be a luxurious meal, but from context and tone I gather that bread and onions wasn't unusual traveler's food. There's even some jokes where Quixote brags that knights are willing to sustain themselves on anything, and Sancho says that in that case, he'll give Quixote the nuts and raisins and keep the rest for himself. So bread and onions at least aren't the bottom of the barrel for traveler's food, for the joke to work. cheetah7071 fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Apr 7, 2021 |
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Apr 7, 2021 22:42
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Libluini posted:Besides, Don Quixote was released in two parts in 1605 and 1615, so those onions aren't pre-modern in any case. Welllll Thats the Early Modern tbf which despite the name we usually consider a different period from the actual Modern Also add cheese to the bread and onion, then its great!
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Apr 7, 2021 22:47
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I've eaten whole onions out of the garden and even though I have an otherwise iron stomach I get a pretty sore stomach from that until I eat something else to dilute it. But I still do it occasionally. Also consider that Spanish onions have a reputation for being sweeter and milder 
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Apr 7, 2021 22:47
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Looking into this, onions are fascinating! Apparently humans have been eating them since forever, since even wild forms are basically everywhere humans can live and they're all edible from the get-go, no domestication needed. On the other hand, we don't know exactly where all the modern forms of Allium-plants are coming from, since the time when most of the modern forms like our common garlic and onions were bred, was around the time of ancient Egypt. Reinhard M. Fritsch and Nikolai Friesen believe so at least, but they claim since we can't properly identify our modern plants with the old, local names used in Egypt and Mesopotamia, we can't really follow the evolutionary history of the domesticated Allium-plants back to their wild ancestors. Essentially, back when humans first started raising wild onion in their gardens, they kind of went over board and created so many different variants immediately that it created a huge, incomprehensible mess. So in conclusion, we have been eating the same kind of onion plants with slight alterations for thousands of years. Which is amazing, really. You can look up their paper on onion evolution here, if you want. The PDF-download is free. Edit: cheetah7071 posted:I mean it definitely wasn't supposed to be a luxurious meal, but from context and tone I gather that bread and onions wasn't unusual traveler's food. There's even some jokes where Quixote brags that knights are willing to sustain themselves on anything, and Sancho says that in that case, he'll give Quixote the nuts and raisins and keep the rest for himself. So bread and onions at least aren't the bottom of the barrel for traveler's food, for the joke to work. The joke probably comes from both bread and onions being the most basic food you can have. Wild onions existing also means this could be a hidden joke about them only having bread, and sustaining themselves by collecting wild onions on the way. "Bread and onions" could have been Cervantes's attempt at jokingly telling the reader "they have nothing".
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Apr 7, 2021 22:49
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Apr 7, 2021 22:50
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Couldn’t they just have been fried ?
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Apr 7, 2021 22:50
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euphronius posted:Couldn’t they just have been fried ? Yeah I assume people fried their onions when they had the chance, I just brought it up because it was pretty clear that the characters were eating them raw. But Don Quixote is a comedy so maybe it's a joke that just went over my head and I'm supposed to laugh at these idiots eating their onions raw
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Apr 7, 2021 22:52
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Libluini posted:Looking into this, onions are fascinating! Apparently humans have been eating them since forever, since even wild forms are basically everywhere humans can live and they're all edible from the get-go, no domestication needed. Wow, this poster really knows their onions
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Apr 7, 2021 23:22
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I'd write a comedy where the main characters eat food flavoured with salt and High-fructose corn syrup, but, isn't that just every US sitcom?
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Apr 7, 2021 23:27
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Libluini posted:Well, if you could have seen the thick, meaty slices of onion people over here put on raw minced meat, which they first put on bread, you don't even need pre-modern onions. thanks for reminding me, haven't had one of those in a while
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Apr 7, 2021 23:31
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cheetah7071 posted:Speaking of onions, were pre-modern onions less sharp-tasting? Reading Don Quixote, the combination of bread and onions comes up a few times as pretty standard traveler food, and from context it doesn't seem like the characters were roasting the onions. Just biting into a raw onion for lunch isn't impossible, of course, but it'd make a lot more sense if they were different cultivars from the onions we use the most today. It's probably not so much premodern as it is Spanish. The Spanish onion is separate type. "The Spanish onion is often eaten raw." https://www.cooksinfo.com/spanish-onions
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Apr 7, 2021 23:52
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There was also a key point in the plot of Holes in the ancient year of 1998 where the characters ate raw onions fresh out of the ground. There's a lot of accounts where it's just doable.
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Apr 7, 2021 23:54
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sullat posted:IIRC they weren't paid solely in grain, they also got an allowance of meat, clothes, oil and veggies. Well, onions mostly. We know this from surviving ledgers. Is there a cookbook to make the meal someone would eat to build the Pyramids. Future people will read our cookbooks on what to live on when in Skyrim.
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Apr 8, 2021 00:02
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Onion opinions ITT
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Apr 8, 2021 00:10
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The people talking about eating raw onion as though it's some Herculean task, I wonder what they eat every day.
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Apr 8, 2021 00:14
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Brendan Rodgers posted:The people talking about eating raw onion as though it's some Herculean task, I wonder what they eat every day.
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Apr 8, 2021 00:15
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:...cooked onions? Yeah? Even the English have been eating cooked onions forever, and they barely even understand the point of food.
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Apr 8, 2021 00:20
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Brendan Rodgers posted:The people talking about eating raw onion as though it's some Herculean task, I wonder what they eat every day.
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Apr 8, 2021 00:20
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Has anyone made/eaten Garum? What's it like?
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Apr 8, 2021 00:31
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I've heard it said that vietnamese fish sauce (which is a bit different from the Thai stuff which you'll find outside of Asian supermarkets) is extremely similar
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Apr 8, 2021 00:35
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Comstar posted:Is there a cookbook to make the meal someone would eat to build the Pyramids. Basically: no. We might get there, but the big trouble is that recipes for bread basically were never written down. We've had some very exciting archaeology on the subject, including fairly recently isolating what is probably the yeast strain used, but even if we're very confident we have all the ingredients and tools nailed down, that won't tell us stuff like the specific proportions or the rising time or kneading time beyond guessing/analogy.
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Apr 8, 2021 00:36
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Brendan Rodgers posted:Has anyone made/eaten Garum? What's it like? I got my daughter-in-law some off Amazon. It was from Spain, supposedly based from a 3rd century recipe. It smells pretty bad, but the taste is much more subtle. Fishy, but more like Worcestershire sauce, which I guess is a similar sort of fish sauce.
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Apr 8, 2021 00:37
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Brendan Rodgers posted:Has anyone made/eaten Garum? What's it like? It’s like/is fish sauce.
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Apr 8, 2021 00:38
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Worcestershire sauce is very common even today . (It’s garum)
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Apr 8, 2021 00:39
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Comstar posted:Is there a cookbook to make the meal someone would eat to build the Pyramids. Basically: no. We might get there, but the big trouble is that recipes for bread basically were never written down. We've had some very exciting archaeology on the subject, including fairly recently isolating what is probably the yeast strain used, but even if we're very confident we have all the ingredients and tools nailed down, that won't tell us stuff like the specific proportions or the rising time or kneading time beyond guessing/analogy. E: We do have some ancient recipes, I've tried a few. I rather liked a Hittite recipe for apple sauce - basically just 3 less sweet apples (I use granny smiths), an onion (I use yellow), some butter (I use earth balance), and maybe half a teaspoon of oregano. Melt the butter in a pot, fry the onions, then put in the (peeled) apples with some water, mash it up a bit and keep going till its pretty soft, add in the oregano. We don't have any serving suggestions for it, so the idea I heard (and used) was to spread it on bread. I thought it was good enough that I've done it more than once.
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Apr 8, 2021 00:42
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Brendan Rodgers posted:Has anyone made/eaten Garum? What's it like? My understanding is it's very similar to SE Asian fish sauce. Theoretically there may have been some cultural exchange going on there millennia ago by which the recipe spread. This guy tried making some himself, using a Roman cheat recipe to make same-day garum (since his neighbors would hate him if he turned his apartment into a months-long garum factory): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S7Bb0Qg-oE
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Apr 8, 2021 00:46
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In india and nepal, a common meal/snack is chapatti (flat bread), rawonions (usually red/sharpest kind you can get), cucumbers and whole chili. Also at McSorley's, one of the oldest irish bars in nyc, one of the snacks is a plate of sharp cheddar, raw onions and homemade mustard. Want to go back one I get the vaccine.
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Apr 8, 2021 00:56
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Good sweet onions are definitely edible uncooked. My understanding is that it’s more about where they are grown than variety, but that variety does matter some. A thick cut sweet onion sandwich is really good with a good sauce. Also you can just roast onions whole. Cut the top off spread the onion a bit pour in some sweet vinegar or sweet wine then roast for like an hour, it knocks the kick way down and makes them sweet. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 01:17
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skasion posted:Onion opinions ITT oponions
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Apr 8, 2021 03:19
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When you wear your onion on your belt is it hanging against your left leg or your right.
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Apr 8, 2021 03:26
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