Context switching costs more than we give it credit for

Re:Context switching costs more than we give it credit for by astura on Monday January 18, 2021 @01:21AM (#25818796)

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.

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Re:Context switching costs more than we give it credit for by bsder on Monday January 18, 2021 @06:09PM (#25827856)

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. :(

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