Big Brother's Shallot Secret

How one teenager triggered some serious food stress-itivity

Proof a shallot/onion conflagration is afoot: I found this GIANT shallot at a grocery store right after publishing this post.

As I waited in the thirty-person line bending around the fifteen-buck burger tent at our local farmer’s market, I psyched myself out to ask about the shallots. Three years into my low-tyramine “headache” diet, interrogating food service workers hadn’t gotten any easier, but I knew I’d ask. After all, there’s nothing worse than buying a freshly-cooked migraine on a Sunday afternoon.

For most of my life, I didn’t know what a shallot was, nor had I ever knowingly eaten one. But three years ago, I discovered onions worsen my chronic migraine disorder and shallots, aka small onions often used in fancy salad dressings, do not. I can’t eat big onions because they contain a chemical called tyramine in higher concentrations than shallots do. Tyramine is a migraine trigger that is, unfortunately, found in many, many foods. Now, I’m that lady who puts a dozen shallots in her grocery basket, thereby emptying the entire shallot display at the store. I use them instead of onions in recipes, and it takes multiple tiny shallots to add up to one onion. 

“What would you like?” the burger girl asked. She had long, blond hair and a body the width of two french fries. She also had an “over it” expression on her face, which made perfect sense to me, given her repetitive job, taking orders for a burger place that had exactly one type of burger available. Modifications were, “politely,” declined, so the only decisions to be made were whether or not to order two patties and whether or not to order fries. My high school summer job was at a movie theater concession stand, a dining establishment with a similarly limited menu. The Number One combo was a popcorn and a drink, the Number Two was a bigger popcorn and bigger drink, and the Number Three was a bottomless popcorn and bottomless drink. It was a boring job, but I’d like to think, looking back, that I wasn’t an immediate turn-off to customers, as this girl at the burger stand was. 

“Oh, hi. Hi there. Quick question about your menu,” I said, gesturing to the sheet of paper that listed the burger’s toppings, the fries, and some drinks in a large font. “Just confirming that you are using grilled shallots—like it says—and not grilled onions?”

“Shallots are onions.” Burger Girl said, in a tone that made me instantly forget I was twice her age. Based on her exasperated-yet-wary look, my strange question had just about ruined her day. I usually justify my interrogation of restaurant employees by reminding myself that they are paid money to deal with people like me, but this time, I felt a sudden urge to grovel at her feet and beg for mercy. 

I was taken aback by Burger Girl’s assertion, both because she sounded overly-confident and because she was right. Up until recently, shallots were considered a unique plant species by the great cabal of produce taxonomists. Then, in 2010, something shady happened, and suddenly shallots were onions. I’m not sure what went down, but given that the internet has no record of who made this decision or how, and the only known mention of the shallot identity switch is buried in a $350 onion textbook, the government was probably involved. Maybe Big Brother, feeling offended by the annoyingly small size of shallots, has plans to erase them from history. But regardless, I doubt Burger Girl had actually researched the provenance of shallots. She was just guessing. Unless, of course, she was part of the conspiracy. But really, saying that shallots are onions is semantically misleading. It’s like saying ice skates are shoes, or that iPhones are laptops, or that hot dogs are sandwiches.

“Y-y-yes, shallots are onions,” I reluctantly conceded, aware of the disgruntled customers waiting behind me, “but I’m allergic to onions, not shallots. So, which do you use?” 

I used the word allergic intentionally, to try and emphasize the severity of the issue over the nonsensical logic of my statement. The biggest problem with dining out with weird dietary restrictions is a terminology one. When ordering at a restaurant, I usually don’t say I’m allergic to onions, because “allergic” implies anaphylaxis. However, saying I’m “sensitive” to onions is too soft a statement. I’ve met plenty of people who are “sensitive” to gluten that still eat it in small quantities, or in large quantities with a bit of Pepto Bismol. But if I eat onion, I get a painful migraine. Such a severe consequence does not seem suited to the word “sensitivity.” Even when I choose to be more specific when ordering food by saying that onions give me migraines, it is surprising how few people actually know what a migraine entails, and how miserable it is. To a busy waiter or waitress who is counting down the hours to the end of their shift, I might as well be saying I am curious about onions simply because I want to waste their time and energy.

A second problem often arises with my strange food “sensitivities.” Restaurants are aware of the common allergens in their foods, like peanuts and milk, and some will even post allergen information online. But which of the salsas at a burrito place contain onions? Was the Soup of the Day made with onions? Does the chimichurri use onions? What about the pasta sauce? Most food service workers don’t know the ingredients in everything on the menu, and oftentimes, certain components (or entire dishes) are pre-prepared off-site, so there’s not even anyone to ask. 

Unless, of course, you email the owner of the restaurant, which I once did for a boba place, to inquire about the ingredients in their taro milk tea. “Our ingredients are confidential,” the owner replied, “but is there a particular ingredient you’re concerned about?” At the time, there were roughly a hundred and fifty migraine-inducing ingredients I was concerned about, so I decided to order my boba elsewhere.

I could have ordered my lunch elsewhere, too. A burger place that I knew I could eat at was, in fact, just a few blocks away. But the allure of novelty gets me just as much as anyone—or perhaps me even more so, given how few restaurants are in my regular rotation. So there I was, publicly expressing my anxiety about the size of the burger stand’s onions. And, possibly, going toe-to-toe with the government. 

If a person’s eyes could roll out of their head, Burger Girl’s would have been on the ground, well on their way to the homemade roti booth. After rolling her eyes she scoffed, then said, “It says shallots, right there on the menu. So are you ordering something or not?”

This was such a simple question that I’ve been asked countless times before and yet, it’s never easy for me to answer. Was ordering a new yummy thing worth the potential consequences? I ran through my schedule for the week in my head. I guess I could move all of tomorrow’s plans if I got a migraine, but my Tuesday plans were more important. If I got a migraine from the burger, would I be able to get it to stop by Tuesday? How many migraines did I have last week? Could I handle getting another one now? Even if she was right about the shallots, what was in their homemade pickles?

I ended up ordering a burger, not because I felt at peace about it but because I was hungry and had just aged a year or two waiting in line. This is often how I’m forced to try foods I’m uncertain about, with decidedly mixed results. Luckily, it worked out this time. The burger was both very tasty and contained shallots, as Her Majesty Burger Girl had said. You’re welcome, Burger Girl, for spicing up your day, and for giving you a name to report to your superiors at the Pentagon.

I haven’t been back to the burger stand. I refuse to patronize a business that’s complicit in The Great Shallot-Onion Identity Conspiracy. If I disappear after publishing this essay, you’ll know exactly what happened. 🧠

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