onion skin

Johnson certainly delights in creating puzzling distractions, but even if his film is as deep as a layer of onion skin, it is immensely engaging.

Under a cloudless blue sky, a woman in a yellow dress held a basket of freshly baked sweet bread known as “paska,” eggs dyed with onion skin into a deep crimson, cheese, butter, pork fat and kielbasa, symbols of indulgences that the faithful had given up for 40 days before the resurrection of Jesus.

Despite Mrs. Kluck’s complaining, all that’s there is a bit of onion skin and a few gum wrappers.

"You think you know him and then you peel off another ring of the onion skin and there's something else extraordinary underneath," she said.

But imperial Russia’s conquest of the region in the 19th century introduced methods of mass production, and artificial dyes supplanted those made with pomegranate husks, onion skin and acacia flowers.