New use of onion

Very interesting, .

In 1919 when the flu killed 40 million people there was this Doctor that
visited the many farmers to see if he could help them combat the flu.
Many of the farmers and their family had contracted it and many died.

The doctor came upon this one farmer and to his surprise, everyone was very
healthy. When the doctor asked what the farmer was doing that was different
the wife replied that she had placed an unpeeled onion in a dish in the
rooms of the home, (probably only two rooms back then). The doctor couldn't
believe it and asked if he could have one of the onions and place it under
the microscope. She gave him one and when he did this, he did find the flu
virus in the onion. It obviously absorbed the bacteria, therefore, keeping
the family healthy.
Now, I heard this story from my hairdresser in AZ. She said that several
years ago many of her employees were coming down with the flu and so were
many of her customers. The next year she placed several bowls with onions
around in her shop. To her surprise, none of her staff got sick. It must
work.. Try it and see what happens. We did it last year and we never got the flu.

Now there is a P. S. to this for I sent it to a friend in Oregon who
regularly contributes material to me on health issues. She replied with this
most interesting experience about onions:

Thanks for the reminder. I don't know about the farmers story.. but, I do
know that I contacted pneumonia and needless to say I was very ill.. I came
across an article that said to cut both ends off an onion put it into an
empty jar...placing the jar next to the sick patient at night. It said the
onion would be black in the morning from the germs.. sure enough it happened
just like that.. the onion was a mess and I began to feel better.

Another thing I read in the article was that onions and garlic placed around
the room saved many from the black plague years ago. They have powerful
antibacterial, antiseptic properties.

This is the other note.

Lots of times when we have stomach problems we don't know what to blame.
Maybe it's the onions that are to blame. Onions absorb bacteria is the
reason they are so good at preventing us from getting colds and flu's and is
the very reason we shouldn't eat an onion that has been sitting for a time
after it has been cut open. 

LEFT OVER ONIONS ARE POISONOUS

I had the wonderful privilege of touring Mullins Food Products, Makers of
mayonnaise.. Mullins is huge, and is owned by 11 brothers and sisters in the
Mullins family. My friend, Jeanne, is the CEO.

Questions about food poisoning came up, and I wanted to share what I learned
from a chemist.

The guy who gave us our tour is named Ed. He's one of the brothers Ed is a
chemistry expert and is involved in developing most of the sauce formula.
He's even developed sauce formula for McDonald's.

Keep in mind that Ed is a food chemistry whiz. During the tour, someone
asked if we really needed to worry about mayonnaise. People are always
worried that mayonnaise will spoil. Ed's answer will surprise you. Ed said
that all commercially- made Mayo is completely safe.

"It doesn't even have to be refrigerated. No harm in refrigerating it, but
it's not really necessary." He explained that the pH in mayonnaise is set at
a point that bacteria could not survive in that environment. He then talked
about the quaint essential picnic, with the bowl of potato salad sitting on
the table and how everyone blames the mayonnaise when someone gets sick.

Ed says that! when food poisoning is reported, the first thing the officials
look for is when the 'victim' last ate ONIONS and where those onions came
from (in the potato salad?). Ed says it's not the mayonnaise (as long as
it's not homemade Mayo) that spoils in the outdoors. It's probably the
onions, and if not the onions, it's the POTATOES.

He explained, onions are a huge magnet for bacteria, especially uncooked
onions. You should never plan to keep a portion of a sliced onion.. He says
it's not even safe if you put it in a zip-lock bag and put it in your
refrigerator.

It's already contaminated enough just by being cut open and out for a bit,
that it can be a danger to you (and doubly watch out for those onions you
put in your hotdogs at the baseball park!) Ed says if you take the leftover onion and cook it like crazy you'! ll probably be okay, but if you slice that leftover onion and put on your sandwich, you're asking for trouble. Both the onions and the moist potato in a potato salad, will attract and grow bacteria faster than any commercial mayonnaise will even begin to break down.

Also, dogs should never eat onions. Their stomachs cannot metabolize onions.

Please remember it is dangerous to cut an onion and try to use it to cook
the next day, it becomes highly poisonous for even a single night and
creates toxic bacteria which may cause adverse stomach infections because of excess bile secretions and even food poisoning.

The Evolution of Interest

           Last Sunday afternoon I was raking leaves that had fallen from the grape arbor and then I found myself cutting vines and trimming back the overgrowth.  I had to smile to myself handling those vines, oh, how I used to treasure them!

           Twenty years, ago, when Martha Stewart had all middle class women turned into little homemakers, my social lady friends and I were making grape vine wreaths.  I use to spot vines growing wild while driving and mentally mark the spot for later harvesting.  Often I would be climbing around logs in the freezing cold reaching beyond my true ability for a nice long vine. I recall once, I even slipped and fall in snow! Then I would soften the vines in a warm bathtub, slowly then I make a circle of them and build it thicker and thicker.   There were  long hours involved in the whole process.

           Tired and needing a rest late afternoon Sunday, I sat in a lawn chair for about twenty minutes and made a wreath.  I remembered my friends fondly and how important getting it right was for all of us.  Now, Living Magazine, I pick up, glance at the photography and think of all that silliness.

           My magazines of choice are Arces and Mother Earth News now.  My interests have moved on, I guess.  But it was fun, remembering, and quietly creating a wreath.  This wreath may make it to the side door this holiday season, just to remind me to smile.

Bread

           My mother was a city girl, grew up in Tucson when it was a the cross roads of the depression with trains going west to California and travelers going north and south on ancient pathways from Mexico to Canada.  At that point in history is was most famous for the TB sanitariums for wealthy people from the east.

           After she married my father, a farm kid from South Dakota, she decided to learn to bake bread like all the women of his family.  That tale famously was repeated many times to me by my mother. 

            "There are sometimes in life that can't be learned out of a book, that can be learned if you don't have a teacher that stands right next to you.  One of them is breadmaking, Loretta."

             "Did you ever try, Mother?'

             "Oh, I tried but I was no good at it.  I never told your father because he was always comparing me to his mother and sisters.  I made bread.  It was so bad I feed it to the chickens before you Dad came in from the field."

              "How could it be that bad?  What happens?"

               "There are just something in life you have to learn as kid like farming, a city kid can go out as an adult become a farmer.  I believe breadmaking is the same way.  There is a feel for it, knowing how much to knead it and working with yeast, that is a whole skill in doing that.  No, breadmaking has to be taught as a young girl."

              For my whole life I accepted that story as fact.  I had put the skill of bread making on the list of things I was not going to do because of this fable in my family.  Once I owned a new bread making machine but quickly lost interest in it as I would have only spent time for extraordinary bread not white bread that smelled up the house in a Martha Stewart way.  Truly artisan breads were my interest, but the fable said not in this life time, until this month.

              In Arces magazine there was an article by Lauren Chattman about whole grain breads.  I was hooked.  She wrote about different grains, protein, fermentation, flavor in ways I never heard before.  I want to include more seeds and nuts in my diet and as I was reading her story about bread, I realized this is the easy way to do it.  Then the family story about bread making popped into my mind.  Well, I answered the story by saying, I have chickens.

               I copied the eight grain and seed pan loaf recipe and let it hang around my kitchen counter for about a week.  One day I picked it up and headed to a bulk food store and started buying the ingredients.  The following Saturday was rainy and my gardens show was on the radio.  The evening before I made what Chattman calls the soaker, enough for two loafs.  The soaker is the a mixture of seeds and nuts soak overnight to bring out the flavor and sweetness.   The whole process took a long time on Saturday, it seemed like to me.  But the loaves turned out great.

               Farming, maybe, a skill that is learned as a child but I can say for sure that, skill of making bread, can be self taught later in life.