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The World of Onions

Those of you who have paid close attention to my recipes would have noticed that I almost always use red onions. I like yellow onions as well and I particularly love the ones we call shallots. They’re somewhat sweet, and when minced finely, you can add a little balsamic vinegar and use it to spoon it over oysters before eating them. A great cure for hangover is an onion tart, laced with chilies. Another one is this: juice 1 onion and mix it with equal part of tomato juice, add some Tabasco and drink it straight. You’ll feel discobombulated for a moment but that nasty headache will clear.

Many archaeologists, botanists and food historians believe onions originated in central Asia. Other research suggests that onions were first grown in Iran and West Pakistan. I’d say somewhere in between. It is presumed that our ancestors discovered and started eating wild onions very early - long before farming or even writing was invented. Very likely, this humble vegetable was a staple in the prehistoric diet.

The onion has been cultivated for 5000 years or more, this we know. Since onions grew wild in various regions, they were probably consumed for thousands of years and domesticated simultaneously all over the world. Onions may be one of the earliest cultivated crops because they were less perishable than other foods of the time, were transportable, were easy to grow and could be grown in a variety of soils and climates. In addition, the onion was useful for sustaining human life. Did you know that onions prevented thirst and could be dried and preserved for later consumption when food might be scarce? Onions grew in Chinese gardens and they are referenced in some of the oldest Vedic writings from India. In Egypt, onions can be traced back to 3500 B.C. There is evidence that the Sumerians were growing onions as early as 2500 B.C. One Sumerian text dated to about 2500 B.C. tells of someone plowing over the city governor’s onion patch. In Egypt, onions were actually an object of worship. The onion symbolized eternity to the Egyptians who buried onions along with their Pharaohs. The Egyptians saw eternal life in the anatomy of the onion because of its circle-within-a-circle structure. If you look at a book on early Egyptian painting onions appear on the inner walls of the pyramids and in the tombs of both the Old Kingdom and the New Kingdom. The onion is mentioned as a funeral offering and onions are depicted on the banquet tables of the great feasts - both large, peeled onions and slender, immature ones. Likewise, Dioscorides, a Greek physician in first century A.D., noted several medicinal uses of onions. The Greeks used onions to fortify athletes for the Olympic Games. Before competition, athletes would consume pounds of onions, drink onion juice and rub onions on their bodies (a little known fact). The Romans ate onions regularly and carried them on journeys to their provinces in England and Germany. Pliny the Elder, Roman’s keen-eyed observer, wrote of Pompeii’s onions and cabbages. The Roman gourmet Apicius, credited with writing one of the first cookbooks (which dates to the eighth and ninth centuries A.D.), included many references to onions. By the Middle Ages, the three main vegetables of European cuisine were beans, cabbage and onions. In addition to serving as a food for both the poor and the wealthy, onions were prescribed to alleviate headaches, snakebites and hair loss (not kidding!) They were also used as rent payments and wedding gifts. I would safely posit that onions are to be found in all cuisines around the world, past and present, not a bad achievement for the humble allium.