From KCRW, I'm Evan Kliman and you're listening to good food.

I'm a sepophiliac, a lover of the onion to use a phrase coined by writer Mark

Kurlansky.

My father was a baker in the Navy on a coined by writer Mark Kurlanski.

My father was a baker in the Navy on a destroyer escort

during World War I, and he told me

that to prepare for serving each meal,

the cooks on the griddle would chop and saute onions so that the aroma would

pervade the ship and open the sailor's appetites. My appetite was

extremely opened by Mark Kurlansky's latest deep dive this time into the core of an onion.

Hi Mark.

Hi.

I love onion so much when I saw that that was your your latest subject to delve into I was just so delighted

Yeah, my

my father. Yeah, my father.

Yeah, I mean, I always noticed when you have people over for dinner,

if you just saute some onions before they come over they come over and they say,

ooh, something smells good.

Always. So let's start with the onion itself.

What is it and explain the layers to us?

Well, an onion is actually similar to a tulip.

It's a bulb that produces a flower.

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