alchemy

When one hears the word 'alchemy' the first thing that comes to mind is turning lead into gold. It can be done actually. If you take thin lead sheets and bombard them with some type of nucleus in an accelerator......ask the folks at CERN. I am sure they can tell exactly how it can be done. A broader definition of alchemy is turning dross, or something undesirable, into something desirable. If turning lead into gold were easily done, then two things would occur. First, the price of lead would immediately jump at the same time that gold would plummet Eventually the two would be very close to each other and both would continue to drop in value until they begin to approach the historic prices of lead. In the end, nobody wins.

There is such a thing as modern alchemy however. It is cooking. The end products are perishable and are intended to eventually to be turned back into dross. The most striking example of my point is carmelized onions. I hate raw onions. Oooooh, I almost forgot. I used the word 'hate' in this blog which means the search engine at my employer will block my blog. Anyway, I hate raw onions.

There have been many instances in my life where I expressed my disdain for them. My family, friends, and coworkers all could swap amusing anecdotes. There are things that can be done to the lowly onion that improve it's palatablity. The first is mincing. At Mickey D's the burgers have onion on them that is bordering on pureed. I am not sure exactly why, but for me this makes the onion edible. The second is pickling. Most pickled onions are still undesirable for me but there have been a few exceptions. Namely, the Vidalia onion relish at Pirate O's. I wouldn't be able to polish off a jar of this stuff, but mixed with cheese etc. it is good. The same can be said of the pickled onions with the smoked salmon flatbread at Epic. The high holy of onion alchemy is still the carmelized onion. Combine diced sweet onions with olive oil, and a bit of soy sauce. Reduce it down for close to an hours, stirring frequently, and browning it to the point where it is flirting with charring.......Lord have mercy. There is about two ounces of it in our fridge. If I thought I could get away with it, I'd eat it all.

There are other foods than can be converted from personally inedible into something exquisite. The raw potato. The raw tomato. Zucchini. Cranber.......nah they are just nasty no matter what.