I always hate that frequent retort, though, because people are always saying "this recipe says caramelize the onion for 20 minutes, and that's impossible, this recipe will take an hour!" but they're attacking the wrong thing: cook the onions for 20 minutes, then quibble about whether "caramelizing" is the scientifically-correct word.

The intent of the recipe is almost always to cook the onions for the time stated. Chefs were referring to softened, browned onions as "caramelized" for decades before the chemists started coming in and saying "well, actually that isn't technically caramelized..."

> cook the onions for 20 minutes, then quibble about whether "caramelizing" is the scientifically-correct word.

Except that this is wrong. It makes a world of difference in how the recipe tastes. And you have to be a relatively experienced cook to know to flag this.

"Cooked" onions are generally soft but still acrid.

"Caramelized" onions are starting to get hard again because of browning and are sweet with no acrid flavor at all.

Those are two VERY different flavor profiles.

And that's before we get to the point that we have to wait 40 extra minutes for the caramelized onions while everything else is waiting because you expected that it only took 20.

No, I know there's a difference, what I'm saying is that any recipe that says "caramelize the onions for 20 minutes" means cook the onions for 20 minutes.

I gather you think very poorly of chefs and recipe writers, but, really, no recipe-writer tests a recipe by cooking the onions for an hour and then writes "20 minutes" to try and win some speed sweepstakes.

I've noticed in my part of America when people say "caramelized onions" they don't mean dark brown fully caramelized onions. They usually just mean cooked onions. I expect when I order a dish that advertises "caramelized onions" I'll get cooked onions 99 times out of 100. I was well into my 20s before I ever even had fully caramelized onions. (and I really wasn't impressed if I'm being honest)

However, I also noticed in Montreal "caramelized onions" actually always meant caramelized onions.

So it's just really just poor terminology rather than a ploy to fool you.

I would argue its more a function of "time".

Nobody in America is going to wait an hour for food outside of the high-end restaurants. So, anything with "caramelized onions" would need to prep and store that step with the associated degradation.

The exception was my favorite cheesesteak place (sadly now gone--the owners got old and retired). The owner literally had a row of chopped onions that stretched the length of the grill. As he cooked he would keep adding onions on the far right while moving the entire line of onions leftward--so the onions that got used actually had enough time to truly caramelize. Similarly for the steak, just much faster. When everything got to the far left (steak with cheese (people who want CheeseWhiz could go somewhere else thanks), onions, bun) his wife would assemble the full thing.

It was a thing of beauty to watch them work. And the cheesesteak was glorious.

And now I'm hungry and craving a cheesesteak that doesn't exist anymore. :(