Good question. The answer’s a bit rambling, but here it its:
I grew up in a household run by my mother, who believed that the way to get you to like new foods wasn’t to encourage you to try them, but to NOT ALLOW YOU TO LEAVE THE TABLE UNTIL YOU’VE EATEN WHAT YOU DON’T WANT TO EAT!
This was unnecessarily traumatic to me, but never convinced me to like anything. In fact, to this day, I cannot walk past Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup in the supermarket without shuddering.
Nevertheless, when I finally got sufficiently away from my parents (which involved a move across four intervening states), I embarked upon a personal project of trying foods that I wanted to like under my own control.
Onions were one of them.
I hated onions as a kid. Loved the flavor, but hated the texture–cooked or raw. Of course, parents MADE me eat them, so I hated them and they were thus a target of my determination (don’t get me started on chili beans, which I also eventually conquered). I tried them in little pieces at first, tried cooking with them a bit, and gradually got to like them (they are now one of my favorite vegetables).
About the same time that I became an onion-eater, I noticed that the severity and frequency of my colds went way down.
Another thing I was doing back then was shopping at my first occult bookstore, buying grimoires, books on shamanism, esp, ceremonial magic, and other paranormal stuff (my parents would have killed me). I also picked up a few facsimiles of medieval herbals, just for their oddness value.
I found references to an old folk remedy for head congestion involving wearing half an onion around your neck on a string, and putting half a cut onion in each corner of every room of your house.
I thought: “Hey, maybe they had something here…”
The other thing that I “knew” about fighting colds was Vitamin C, found in orange juice.
I put the two together, and by cracky if they didn’t work.
I should note that I was a bit too absolutist about the “nothing but onions” bit. Just make sure that they are 90-95% of your diet for the 24 hours. I have been known to eat onion sandwiches during this regimen: a thick slice of onion–1/4 to 1/2 inch–between two slices of bread with a bit of salt and pepper and (if you’re feeling frisky) some horseradish mustard.
Straight prepared horseradish is more potent, but it’s TOO potent for me (it will clear your sinuses, though. Laser beams are less effective).
Chop a whole eye-watering white onion into about half-inch pieces, toss them to separate, and mix in just enough salsa to coat. Eat. Blow your nose 'til empty.
Topping and tailing and peeling an onion and cutting it into wedges and separating it into layers and eating it like potato chips works for me, too.
Drink lots of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Get back to me.
No-one wants to kiss me, but it’s not because I have a cold!
gabriela: It’s only 24 hours!
