When I lived in Atlanta during the seventies and eighties, a fetishistic whoop of pleasure would go up along the aisles of the Piggly Wiggly or Kroger or Bi-Lo by wild-eyed aficionados who would let the uninitiated into the secret that the Vidalia onions had arrived in the produce department. I witnessed a pretty Atlanta Junior Leaguer eating a Vidalia onion like an apple as she completed her shopping. A friend of mine would buy a dozen bags of Vidalias on the first day they were available and concoct strange methods to preserve the sweet onions far into the winter months. Once he allowed me access to his cellar and I pulled back at the sight of grotesque, truncated women, until he explained that he used his wife’s ruined panty hose, filled them with the precious Vidalias, and then hung them from the ceiling. “There’s not one onion that is touching another onion. Too much spoilage that way.”
“You like onions a lot more than I do,” I said.
“I like Vidalia onions more than anyone on earth,” he said, his onions hiding but safe in a place where a woman’s legs used to go.
Since those early days in Atlanta, I have become a dedicated advocate of the Vidalia onion. First, let me teach you how to pronounce it because I have seen the word mangled by some of the most famous cooks on earth. It is vie-dale-ya. It is an onion so sweet that you think the fields around Vidalia, Georgia, must be sugary or connected to hives of underground bees. Indeed, they are delicate and subtle and they do not overpower salads or sandwiches. I like to peel them, put them in aluminum foil, hit them with a splash of sesame oil and soy sauce, and grill them over an open fire or throw them in the oven for an hour. They take to my Pickled Shrimp (page 196) with gladness.
The only anti–Vidalia onion fanatic I have ever encountered is my former high school English teacher, Gene Norris. Gene opines (and no one else in the history of the South can make an art form out of opining) this way: “When I want an onion, I want something with kick in it, something that will bite me back, something with some substance to it. I don’t want no sweet onion that’s trying to be more like a potato than a good old onion from my mama’s garden. I want an onion that’s got some sass and backbone to it. Why celebrate an onion that prides itself on not tasting like an onion? Makes no damn sense to me.”
What little opposition the Vidalia onion has received in its triumphant march across the country has come from the unreconstructible Gene Norris. I bought a bag of them in a grocery store in Blue Hill, Maine, this past summer, and I was always pleased when they arrived on California Street when I lived in San Francisco. But what I love most about the Vidalia onion is that it led me straight into the path of the greatest Southern story I have ever heard. I call it the perfect Southern story because all the participants are Southern, because it involves peculiarity, madness, liquor, good high humor, football, snappy dialogue, and more liquor.
My next-door neighbor in Ansley Park was the most fanatical Tennessee football fan I have ever met. When I first moved into the house on Peachtree Circle, I walked out to my office in the back and passed Knox Dobbins washing his car in the driveway we shared. His face was awash with grief, and he leaned against the hood of his car as though he were about to vomit or split open with abdominal pain.
“Are you all right, Knox?” I asked.
“It’s okay. I’ll be fine,” he whispered. “The Volunteers are losing by two touchdowns.”
I nodded in silence and walked up the steps to my office. When I came down an hour later, Knox was on his back in the driveway doing the “dying cockroach” with the spray from the hose hurtling straight up into the air and falling back on him.
“The Vols won it by a field goal,” he shouted.
Later that season, Knox invited me to a football game when Tennessee was playing Georgia in Athens. The only caveat he gave was that we would be forced to sit on the Georgia side because the tickets came from a banker who graduated from the University of Georgia. Knox was worried that he could not sit on his hands for an entire game without rooting for his beloved Vols. That did not turn out to be the major problem of the game.
When I took my seat near the fifty-yard line on the Georgia Bulldog side, a diminutive but formidable lady in her late seventies sat to my immediate left, and she drank from a silver cup filled with ice. She was drinking freely of a brown liquid known as Wild Turkey. She introduced herself and said she’d never seen me, and where was the son of a bitch who usually occupied that seat? I assumed she meant the banker who provided the tickets, but did not know for sure, so I turned and studied the Tennessee lineup with Knox, who had compendious insider knowledge of the entire Volunteer team.
When we rose for the kickoff, I experienced a moment of sheer anxiety when the birdlike woman to my left began to bark like a Georgia bulldog. “Arf, arf, arf, arf, arf, arf, arf!” You get the picture, but it did not let up, so after five minutes I was nearing hysteria as the woman’s barking increased in intensity and volume. She would quit barking only for the several delicious moments when she took a fast swill from her drink and shouted into the sunshine-sweetened air: “Let the big dog drink!”
The barking continued unabated as I became claustrophobic, which began to make breathing difficult. Finally, in desperation, I said, “Madam, do you plan to bark like a bulldog for the entire game?”
She stopped, flashed her ferocious eyes at me, and said, “You’re just like that son of a bitch who usually sits here.”
“Yeah, I can see why it must be a pleasure to surrender those tickets to a stranger.”
“I’ll bet you’re for the goddamn Tennessee Volunteers.”
“I wasn’t when this game began, but I sure am thinking hard about it now,” I said.
She answered me by barking, “Arf, arf, arf, arf, arf,” until halftime, when she mercifully stopped, took a last swallow, and screamed at me, “Let the big dog eat.”
The silence seemed funereal when the woman stopped barking. Then she surprised me by turning friendly. “Hello. Now, son, I’ve got to rest my vocal chords for the second half. So tell me all about yourself. Where you from, honey?”
“Madam, I’m from Beaufort, South Carolina,” I said.
“Beaufort, South Carolina!” she screamed. “I love everything about Beaufort, South Carolina, everything about that pretty little river town. But do you know what I love most about Beaufort?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t.”
“I love to get drunk in Beaufort, South Carolina.” Then she turned to Knox Dobbins and said, “Sweetie pie, where you from, sugar?”
Knox answered, “I’m from Knoxville, Tennessee.”
Again she screamed. “Knoxville, Tennessee? I know everything there is to know about Knoxville, Tennessee. Everything, honey. You know what I love most about Knoxville, Tennessee, the really great thing?”
“No, ma’am, I can’t imagine,” said Knox.
“I love to get drunk in Knoxville, Tennessee.”
There was a pretty young woman sitting next to Knox whom neither of us knew, but who had been dragged into the dance of the bulldog-woman by mere happenstance and the laws of nearness.
“Hey, sweetheart, you look down here, darling. Where are you from, girl?”
“My hometown is Valdosta, Georgia,” the young woman replied.
“Valdosta, Georgia? Now there’s a place to remember. There’s a town you can love. Do you know what I love most about Valdosta, Georgia? The very best thing you can say about Valdosta?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t.”
The older woman paused, took another drink of bourbon, and said, “I love your goddamn onions.”
I told that story once in South Dakota and once in New Hampshire. The audience waited for me to complete the story or get to the point. That’s why I know it is the perfect Southern story—it doesn’t travel well.
Line a baking sheet with brown paper bags and set aside. Thinly slice 2 Vidalia onions crosswise, about ⅛ inch thick. In a large frying pan over medium heat, heat 2 cups peanut oil (or enough oil to come 3 inches up the side of the pan). While the oil is heating, mix 1 cup all-purpose flour with 1 teaspoon sea salt and 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper on a plate. Dredge the onion slices in the flour mixture and coat well. Fry the onions in batches (as many as will comfortably fit in pan) until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon or tongs, transfer the onion slices to the paper bags to drain. Sprinkle lightly with salt and serve piping hot.
SALAD RINGS
Slice a Vidalia onion and separate into rings. Place in a large bowl and cover with cold water (including a few ice cubes) and 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar. Refrigerate for a couple of hours. Drain the onions, toss with a dressing made from 4 parts olive oil and 1 part white wine vinegar, and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Serve the salad ice-cold.
RING SANDWICHES
Cut homemade-style country bread into thin slices and spread unsalted butter on one side of each slice. Lay half the bread out, buttered side up, and arrange razor-thin slices of Vidalia onion over the surface. Sprinkle with sea salt and top with another slice of bread, buttered side down. Cut in half and serve.