SE4 History of Onion

The History of Onion

      Last weekend, I went to Jason’s Thai to have dinner with my friends. It was an excellent experience, as I offered myself an Stewed Chicken with Three Cups Sauce， and talked with the cooker in that restaurant about how to make the Chinese cuisine ourselves at home. Onion is one of most important ingredients on that dish, and additionally, it is also my favorite food ingredient, as onion is able to match with various ingredients to make dishes, tastes delicious and contains various nutrients. I was curious about onion since I was a little child, as I feel it is interesting that onions would make people cry when they are cutting onions. So I want to know more about onion after doing some reach about its history. After exploring the history of onion from different regions in the world, I found out that there are only vague records about onion in history, and due to the communities’ culture variety, onion acts as different characters in ancient people’s lives.

      Through the research, there is no conclusive opinion about the exact location and time of their birth, since there are few intact sources about the history of onion for scientists and historians to trace. As Shultz Susan demonstrates in his essay, “Onions. Journal of Agricultural & Food Information”, the fragmentary evidences discovered in different area worldwide contribute to the food historians and scientists’ conflicting opinions about the birth-land of onion. Some botanists and food historians believe onions originated in central Asia; however, others suggest that onions were first grown in Iran and West Pakistan. Since onions grew wild in various regions, they were probably consumed for thousands of years and planed by the different races’ ancestors contemporaneously all over the world. Most researchers agree the onion has been cultivated for 5000 years or more.

   Despite the reason that onions were historically large-scaled grew in numerous regions, from my prospective, the various types of onions are also a critical factor contributes to the disagreements of its birth-land. Frankly, it is extremely hard for historians to collect detailed data of all kinds of onions existed before, and compare and analyze all this information at the same time. Generally, in our daily lives, People tend to divide the bulb onion into three categories owing to the color: yellow onion, red onion and white onions. As Charleston Daily Mail explains in the "Tears of Joy, Onion Facts," that yellow onions are full-flavored and are a reliable standby for cooking almost anything. The red onion, with its wonderful color, is a good choice for fresh uses or in grilling and charbroiling. As for the white ones, which are the traditional onion, are often used in classic Mexican cuisine (Charleston Daily Mail). However, there are also other types of onion widely used in other countries, not in the United States. For instance, as the Chinese people believe that the green onion can perfectly blend with various food ingredients to make the dishes much more delicious as well as colorful, they add green onions into almost all the Chinese cuisine.

      By referring to The National Onion Association’s discuss about how onion was used in different countries in the ancient ages, I realized that due to the communities’ culture variety, onion acts as different characters in people’s lives. Onion was used in Egypt to do fete. As the National Onion Association writes in “History of Onion”, some wall paintings showed the Egyptian priests are pictured holding onions in his hand or covering an altar with a bundle of their leaves or roots. What’s more, the famous Indian medical treatise Charaka Sanhita discovered onion could work as a medicine because it was good for digestion, the heart, the eyes, and the joints (History of Onion). Onion had a superficial function in ancient Greek athletes’ lives, as they often used onions to strengthen themselves in the Olympic games. And in 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. They were also used as rent payments and wedding gifts (History of Onion).

      Throughout the reach, I got some basic information about onion in the history in different countries as well as under different culture background. Although we cannot draw a exact conclusion about where onion was originally grew and when it firstly came into people’s life, we can still understand that it has had a significant influence on us since 5000 year ago. 

Works Citied

"Tears of Joy, Onion Facts." Charleston Daily Mail: 0. Jun 25 2003. ProQuest. Web. 5   May 2013.

Shultz, Susan. "Onions." Journal of Agricultural & Food Information 11.1 (2010): 8-15.   Print.

“History of Onion”, The National Onion Association         http://onions-usa.org/all-about-onions/history-of-onions