ALLIUM CEPAA wise cook once said that every good meal begins by chopping an onion. The maxim has stuck in my mind because it is so true.
I cook the evening meal most nights at our house, and I’d say nine times out of ten I start by peeling and chopping an onion. Onions give a sweet flavor and add texture to all kinds of dishes, from risottos to stews to burritos. It also means that every good meal begins with a good cry because of onions’ irritant qualities.
Onions are members of the Allium genus, which also includes leeks, chives, garlic, shallots, cippolini, topset onions, rocambole, ramps, and many other species and cultivars grown all over the world from the tropics to the polar circles.
The name “onion” is usually reserved for large-bulbed varieties of Allium. We get our word “onion” from pearl onions. Unio is the Latin word for unity, but it is also a name for a large white pearl. It became a nickname in the Roman street for small white onions. But onion eating far predates the Romans. The original ancestor of our bulb onions has long disappeared, but its wild relatives still grow in central Asia where plant scientists believe it originated.
THE ORGANIC FACTOR
Slicing any onion may make you cry, but an organically grown onion may bring about a greater stream of tears than a conventional one due to the abundance of sulfur and other minerals the onion will have taken in from the compost-enriched soil . The sulfur compounds do more than cause weeping. The organic advantage comes when these sulfur-rich compounds in the onions are stabilized through cooking into delicious flavor compounds.
Because conventional onions are so heavily sprayed, many cooks throw the papery skins away. But with organic onions, you can use those papery skins to give color to broths. The onion-skin hue looks especially nice in clear soups.
CRYING ONION TEARS
Onions concentrate sulfur in their tissues as pyruvate, which is the negative ion of pyruvic acid, a naturally occurring acid found in foods. When an onion is cut, enzymes at the cut area immediately go to work on the pyruvate to produce allicin, a sulfur-containing compound. The more cutting, the more allicin is produced and released. Allicin-bearing fumes meet the moisture film on our eyes and dissolve into it, producing H2SO4—sulfuric acid. No wonder our eyes burn and our tear ducts start washing the irritant away. That’s why a simple splash of cool tap water on the eyes will stop the burning and tears—you’re just hastening and intensifying the rinsing away of acid.
NUTRITION
In ancient times, onions were used to treat intestinal parasites and gastroenteritis. In modern times, they are thought to have a beneficial effect on high blood pressure and heart disease and are used for their antibacterial, antifungal, and antitumor properties. Additionally, onions have some antioxidants, such as quercetin and anthocyanins, and vitamins B6 and C.
TYPES
Although there are many classifications for onions, I think the simplest and most accurate way is to group them into just two kinds: pungent and mild.
Many of the mild types are often called sweet onions, although in most cases they are no sweeter—or even less sweet—than the pungent types. They seem sweeter because the onions’ mildness allows their sugar content to register on the palate, whereas the bite of the pungent types obliterates the sensation of sweetness. ....read more
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