Onions: Living the Sweet Life

We’re peeling back the onion this week to see why this ancient vegetable with a 5,000-year run of popularity is still a favorite on the chopping block. Considered medicinal and life-sustaining in its early days, the onion is still magical, needing only a frying pan and a patient chef to transform its flavor from sharp and tangy to an extraordinary caramelized sweetness. Even Julia Child was moved to say “It would be hard to imagine civilization without onions.” Read on for a tear-less look at this remarkable root…

Onion worship. Thriving for thousands of years in a variety of soils and climates, onions were prized for attributes well beyond flavor. They prevented thirst, and could be dried and preserved for later consumption when food might be scarce. In Egypt, they were literally objects of worship, symbolizing eternity because of the circle-within-a-circle structure. The Greeks fortified athletes before the Olympic Games with onions – to eat, drink and rub on their bodies (can’t imagine that locker room odor today!). Pliny the Elder recorded the Romans’ beliefs that the onion was a cure all, inducing sleep, and healing mouth sores, dog bites, toothaches, dysentery and lumbago. The Pilgrims brought onions with them on the Mayflower, only to find that Native Americans already grew and used a strain of wild onions, eating them raw or cooked, as a seasoning or as a vegetable. During the Revolutionary War, General Ulysses S. Grant was quoted as saying, “I will not move my army without onions!” and proceeded to wait for three cartloads of them – good rations for the troops, yes, but the juice from the bulbs was also used as a salve for wounds. After the war, growers started adapting varieties to different American climates, with globe onions in cooler New England and Mid-Atlantic climates, and Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian-derived onions in the south, according to Food and Drink in America.  And here’s a fun fact from 1000 Places to See Before You Die to try on your foodie friends: New York was originally dubbed the Big Onion because you could remove endless layers without reaching the city’s core.

The 21^st century onion. Now the third largest fresh vegetable industry in the US, according to the National Onion Council, Americans consume an average of 20 pounds each year. Onions are in the mix more than ever, with consumption up 70% in the last two decades, in no small part due to their healthy dose of quercetin - a type of antioxidant compound with anti-inflammatory, anti-cholesterol and anticancer properties.  But the main reason for their soaring popularity is sheer versatility: from raw to caramelized, marinated to roasted, onions are an integral part of recipes at every meal time and nearly every ethnic cuisine. Restaurants buy truckloads of onions for rings, blooms, appetizers, soups, sandwiches, salads and pizza. There’s the yellow onion, with a tangy sweet flavor, good raw or caramelized; red, the fast casual favorite, good for grilling, charbroiling and roasting; and white, the classic ingredient for Mexican cooking.  Caramelized onions are one of the 2000s sweetest success stories, stirring up not just the traditional French onion soup, but dishes such as:

·        Wild Mushroom Onion Melange: caramelized onions and garlic complement the earthy flavor of Cremini, Shiitaki and wild mushrooms in this classic dish that can be served with grilled or roasted beef, pork, veal, poultry or game or as an accompaniment for pasta, polenta, grains or roasted vegetables.

·        Caramelized Onion, Gruyère, and Bacon Spread

·        Scrambled Eggs with Caramelized Onions

·        Green Beans with Caramelized Onions and Walnuts

·        Caramelized Onion Burgers

·        Kale and Caramelized Onion Grilled Cheese

·        Roasted Asparagus, Mushroom, and Onion Pizza 

AVOCADO UPDATE

The market continues to stabilize . Growers have reacted to the low prices on small fruit and have started size picking in the field; this should even out the size curve as well as the prices on small fruit.

Good supplies of 40s and smaller continue to arrive from Mexico.  32/36ct remain limited as they currently make up a small percentage of the harvest.

Ripe programs are on track, and consumers are finding ripe avocados on the shelves so this should spur movement.  There are strong Mexican avocado promotions ramping up which should also strengthen the avocado demand.  

Expect stabilizing markets and good supplies through the remainder of the November and December.  We anticipate a short gap in supply in mid-January, following no-harvest Christmas holidays.  Calavo will prepare to the best of our ability for this foreseen gap. 

Breadsticks Rising: Pile Up an Endless Supply

Soft, warm, chewy, with just the right touch of butter and garlic…is there a carb delight more appreciated than the breadstick? Food for Thought stops munching long enough to dig into the legend, the lore and lusciousness that goes well beyond the breadbasket.

Well bread. The original Italian bread sticks, grissini, originated in the Piedmont region of Italy, but exactly when is open to question, according to The Nibble. One legend says a physician in 1675 invented grissini to feed the very ill nine-year-old duke of the House of Savoy, who was suffering from food poisoning from bread polluted by pathogenic intestinal germs. The good doctor asked the court’s baker to take the dough from the normal ghersa bread, cut it into narrow pieces, then stretch the dough until it was a long thin strip, and bake it until it was crispy. The grissini diet worked wonders, and not only did the young duke’s health improve, but he grew up to be a healthy adult, becoming the first Piedmont king in 1713. According to this version, that’s why grissini became the preferred bread in the Savoia household, known by all visiting royalty and aristocrats of the time. But…it may not be completely accurate. Historical records indicate that in 1634, a Florentine abbot found a novelty bread “with a bizarre shape, that is a bread loaf an arm long and thin like dead bones” in a town outside of Turin – a strange but recognizable description of a breadstick. And even further back in culinary history is a reference to a dish called pane (bread) barotellatus (stick). Whenever or whoever invented it, one of the grissini’s greatest fans was Napoleon Bonaparte, who founded a stagecoach service at the beginning of the 19^th century, mostly dedicated to delivering ‘les petits batons de Turin’ or ‘little sticks of Turin.’

There’s more than the breadbasket in store for these rising stars. Prosciutto-wrapped breadsticks are on Giada De Laurentiis’ appetizer tray for good reason…they’re easily prepared and swiftly consumed. More? Make a cheesy breadstick pizza or try Southern Living’s haystick breadsticks - sprinkle dry ranch dressing mix before baking, tie in little bundles, and enjoy with a marinara sauce dip. Go healthy with James Beard award-winning author Martha Rose Shulman’s whole wheat and rosemary, rye caraway or seeded semolina and rice flour breadsticks. Or take a cue from the breadstick king, Olive Garden (more to come on that), which last year rolled out the breadstick crostini and a breadstick sandwich to diners who couldn’t get enough of even endless portions of the ridiculously addictive bread.

All love for Olive Garden. If you want to recreate this enduring chain’s famous bottomless basket of scrumptious, warm breadsticks, we have the Top Secret recipe from ‘food hacker’ Todd Wilbur, who proudly claims he’s been creating original clone recipes of America’s favorite foods since 1987. He guesses, most accurately, that the breadsticks are proofed and sent to each restaurant, where they are baked golden brown, brushed with butter and sprinkled with garlic salt. Wilbur also reveals that he experimented with the yeast and flour before settling on what you’ll see listed below. The crucial step, according to Wilbur, is the two-stage rising process. Here’s how:

What’s inside.

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon warm

water (105 to 115 degrees F)

16 ounces bread flour (3 cups)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened

What’s on top. 

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

Instructions. Dissolve the sugar and yeast in the warm water in a small bowl or measuring cup and let the mixture sit for 5 minutes, or until it becomes foamy on top.  Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Use the paddle attachment on a stand mixer to mix the softened butter into the flour. When the yeast mixture is foamy, pour it into the flour mixture and use a dough hook to combine the ingredients and knead the dough for approximately 10 minutes. Place the dough in a covered container and let it sit for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until it doubles in size. Measure out 2-ounce portions and roll the dough between your hands or on a countertop to form sticks that are 7 inches long. Place the dough on parchment paper-lined baking sheets, cover and set aside for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size once again. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Bake the breadsticks for 12 minutes, or until golden brown. Brush each one with melted butter and sprinkle with a little garlic salt as soon as they come out of the oven…be assured they won’t last long!