Onions: Living the Sweet Life

We’re peeling back the onion this week to see why this ancient vegetable with a 5,000-year run of popularity is still a favorite on the chopping block. Considered medicinal and life-sustaining in its early days, the onion is still magical, needing only a frying pan and a patient chef to transform its flavor from sharp and tangy to an extraordinary caramelized sweetness. Even Julia Child was moved to say “It would be hard to imagine civilization without onions.” Read on for a tear-less look at this remarkable root…

Onion worship. Thriving for thousands of years in a variety of soils and climates, onions were prized for attributes well beyond flavor. They prevented thirst, and could be dried and preserved for later consumption when food might be scarce. In Egypt, they were literally objects of worship, symbolizing eternity because of the circle-within-a-circle structure. The Greeks fortified athletes before the Olympic Games with onions – to eat, drink and rub on their bodies (can’t imagine that locker room odor today!). Pliny the Elder recorded the Romans’ beliefs that the onion was a cure all, inducing sleep, and healing mouth sores, dog bites, toothaches, dysentery and lumbago. The Pilgrims brought onions with them on the Mayflower, only to find that Native Americans already grew and used a strain of wild onions, eating them raw or cooked, as a seasoning or as a vegetable. During the Revolutionary War, General Ulysses S. Grant was quoted as saying, “I will not move my army without onions!” and proceeded to wait for three cartloads of them – good rations for the troops, yes, but the juice from the bulbs was also used as a salve for wounds. After the war, growers started adapting varieties to different American climates, with globe onions in cooler New England and Mid-Atlantic climates, and Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian-derived onions in the south, according to Food and Drink in America.  And here’s a fun fact from 1000 Places to See Before You Die to try on your foodie friends: New York was originally dubbed the Big Onion because you could remove endless layers without reaching the city’s core.

The 21^st century onion. Now the third largest fresh vegetable industry in the US, according to the National Onion Council, Americans consume an average of 20 pounds each year. Onions are in the mix more than ever, with consumption up 70% in the last two decades, in no small part due to their healthy dose of quercetin - a type of antioxidant compound with anti-inflammatory, anti-cholesterol and anticancer properties.  But the main reason for their soaring popularity is sheer versatility: from raw to caramelized, marinated to roasted, onions are an integral part of recipes at every meal time and nearly every ethnic cuisine. Restaurants buy truckloads of onions for rings, blooms, appetizers, soups, sandwiches, salads and pizza. There’s the yellow onion, with a tangy sweet flavor, good raw or caramelized; red, the fast casual favorite, good for grilling, charbroiling and roasting; and white, the classic ingredient for Mexican cooking.  Caramelized onions are one of the 2000s sweetest success stories, stirring up not just the traditional French onion soup, but dishes such as:

·        Wild Mushroom Onion Melange: caramelized onions and garlic complement the earthy flavor of Cremini, Shiitaki and wild mushrooms in this classic dish that can be served with grilled or roasted beef, pork, veal, poultry or game or as an accompaniment for pasta, polenta, grains or roasted vegetables.

·        Caramelized Onion, Gruyère, and Bacon Spread

·        Scrambled Eggs with Caramelized Onions

·        Green Beans with Caramelized Onions and Walnuts

·        Caramelized Onion Burgers

·        Kale and Caramelized Onion Grilled Cheese

·        Roasted Asparagus, Mushroom, and Onion Pizza