I once had a coworker who just took a bite out of a raw onion right in front of me. They were completely unfazed, like it was an apple or something. I'm still a little emotionally scarred.
I had a surly paternal grandmother who seemed to revel in making the lives of children miserable.
When I was about four years old, I asked for a snack, and she gave me a raw onion.
I sat at the kitchen table and ate the entire fucking thing like it was the sweetest piece of fruit known to history, staring her in the eye the whole time.
If I had been just a little bit older and thought of it, I would've asked her for another one.
She died when I was seven. My reaction to this, as she lived in Washington State, was, "Does that mean we get to see Mount Saint Helens?" as the volcano had gone off just a couple weeks prior.
There are actually onions that you can do that with. I think the soil where those are grown is low on sulfer or something so the onion cant make the chemical responsible for making your eyes water.
I'll usually eat a could wee chunks of an onion after I dice it up, and the other day I was surprised by how palatable the onion was that I was eating. Normally I enjoy eating a couple tiny pieces raw, but this was an onion I could see myself taking a big ol bite out of
Younger guy from the southern US here, I have done this just to fuck with people. I'm just not very sensitive to the "bite" onions are supposed to have. I can chop quite a few of them before my eyes start to water.
It sounds like an old wives tale, and maybe I'm naturally resistant, but if I consistently press my tongue to the roof of my mouth as I chop onions, I do not cry.
Southern guy probably was eating a Vidalia onion. The soil is low in sulfur, I believe, and has a more neutral acidity, so the onion is pretty uniquely sweet. I heard one older southerner call them dirt apples.