"onions and garlic"

[Joel S. Berson]

Well!  We now have the Torah and Chaucer as candidates, with (I
think!) very different metaphors.  Any votes?

Joel

At 11/19/2007 03:01 PM, William Salmon wrote:
A few centuries prior to colonial Massachusetts, a fondness for onions
>and garlic was symbolic of one's being depraved and corrupt. In the
>general prologue to the Canterbury Tales, the summoner is described as
>having a fondness for garlic, onions, and leeks, and this has often
>been interpreted as further indication of his lecherous or corrupt
>character.

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