the price of onions made me cry

I carry a shopping list in my back pocket every day and I stop by grocers almost as often. Today the list couldn’t be simpler: a couple onions and split peas. When I get to any register, I like to play the “what’s the total” game, and I’m damn good at it. The cheapo in me looked forward to the fact that today, when my beaming face met the cashier, I would not reach for the billfold for paper or plastic, but to my front pocket, clinking with annoying change.

Yes, this is the time when too many of us make split pea soup. I’ve got a ham bone, with some scraps of meat still clinging to it. I’ve got celery and carrots, of which half will rot if not employed frugally. I’m out of onions though, and split peas are not a pantry item in this house (perhaps I didn’t look hard enough).

Slid in the near-by produce store, threw two large onions in my basket, no need to mess with those annoying produce bags, and … wham … split pea shelf is bare. Expletive symbols floated over my head. Keep moving. No line for the cashier … reach in pocket for clinking coinage … and what? … three dollars for two onions?

Even knowing I was going to have to go to another store, I completed the purchase, sadly prying out some scrip. Still need split peas.

Walking to the car, I realized that I go through this every year. People serve ham at Easter and make split pea soup soon after. There’s a run on split peas at the grocers, that both Ramon, and the retailers seem to forget. After storming out of two other stores empty handed, noticing onion prices even higher than I just paid, I finally found my prized pease at the fourth, way in the way back of the shelf. I grinned at the checkout girl as I tossed her 54¢ jauntily.

If I was as wise as I was last year, I’d have bought two bags, one for next year. Seems I knew that last year, as I found when I got home, that I already had a bag of split peas.

-ramon

Ramon,

What is your split pea soup recipe? Traditional or Ramonized?

IN the late 1960's, my Mom read an article on how to feed your family on $10 a week. Sunday was ham, followed by sandwiches, casseroles and finally split pea soup. She enthusiastically embraced this idea until we revolted when about to embark on week 3 of the grand economizing experiment.

I like ham in limited doses.

Regards,

Good luck with the split pea soup, Ramon!

What was the fourth store that had the split peas? In my neck of the woods, I'd go to Harvest Time to get the split peas. That reminds me, Jimthebeerguy and I went to check out Grand Mart International the other day. It's supposed to be a competitor of H-Mart, kinda. It has the food from several different nationalities in it, but we decided that when we want Asian food, we'll go to H-Mart, and when we want Mexican food, we'll go to Harvest Time, and when we want Polish, we'll go to Andy's.

Onions: You can get 5 or 6 medium yellow onions at Aldi for 89 cents. Total. I agree that the regular stores get away with murder for their high onion prices. I know I post about Aldi A LOT, but it makes an excellent first stop to get the basic staples before going onto the bigger stores to get the more exotic stuff. If one goes to the Aldi on Montrose, for example, one can then head east a couple blocks and then stop at the Jewel-Osco on Lincoln. Then down to Trader Joe's and yer done.

Hmm, seems there’s a world wide shortage of onions
http://www.freshplaza.com/2007/0410/2_us_texasveg.html

I’m sure I spent plenty more on gas yesterday. Can you say $4/gallon by summer?

C2, as happens too often, I can’t find the recipe I usually use. No big deal, there is no secret to good split pea soup. I wouldn’t want to mess with simplicity, in this case. Today, I’m following the Cook’s Illustrated recipe without the potatoes. I’ll also add some tumeric, because I have some, and have always added it. My dad rates split pea soup by the amount of ham in it, the more the better. I do not agree, but it’s easy enough to scoop out the porridge while leaving behind the piggy bits.

St ‘Za, I finally found the split peas at the Dominick’s in Park Ridge, a beautiful store, that I generally avoid due to prices and corporate dislike (BTW, they no longer have the impressive display of exotic product they used to have). It was just a matter of luck – the store did not matter.

At the two independents, Jewel, and Dominicks, both Spanish and white onions were running $1.99/lb, with sweet onions cheaper. I don’t ever recall seeing onions over $1/lb. I don’t really give a fig about the price on onions specifically, but my brain pays attention to numbers whether I care or not. (When driving down the highway, my brain does all sorts of complicated mathematics to all the license plate numbers I see.) I’m just thankful that I’m not poor, and wonder how others are surviving.

Well I can smell the ham bone being transformed as if by magic into ham broth. Time to go chop those onions!

-ramon

Ramon wrote:At the two independents, Jewel, and Dominicks, both Spanish and white onions were running $1.99/lb, with sweet onions cheaper.

Holy Toledo! Last couple weeks at "our" Dominick's (B'way up by Elmdale), yellow onions have been consistently $4.49 per three-pound bag. I didn't know about a shortage, but golly--I don't think I've ever seen that kind of price for onions in my life. Ever. Period.

I did a double take when I saw white onions at Dominick's for $2.49/lb. the other day. Ended up substituting a red one for what I needed at $1.99/lb.

I forgot to look and see what onions were running at Stanley's when I ran in for a couple things this afternoon...

a 50 lb sack of onions would run me under $10. Around 8-9. Now it is $30-35.

Weather and market forces drive up prices of onions:

A 50-pound bag of white onions from Mexico cost $55 on March 13, a record-high price that reflects low supplies caused by weather and decreased acreage, plus the end of the storage onion shipping season in the United States.

...

Rain in southern growing areas, including Tampico, Mexico, and the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas are the immediate cause cited for the higher prices, but another reason is grower reaction to the glut of onions from the 2004 storage crop, the Market News Service said.

The 2004 storage crop was so large that prices at one point dropped to $2 to $2.50 per 50-pound bag of jumbo yellow onions from the Idaho-Eastern Oregon shipping district a year ago in March. Growers responded by reducing production for the last two summers.

funny thing is that the price for frozen onion rings have stayed the same. You would think they would go up as well.

Maybe they have been frozen since 2004?

Or maybe they are "onion" rings.