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| Onion plants |
Onions and garlic were highly popular in Ancient Egypt. It is known that these plants were part of the diet of the workern involved in the erection of the Great Pyramids; presumably, this also served to prevent infectious diseases to spread in the densely populated workers' quarters. The Old Testament mentions both onion and garlic specifically in connection with the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt.
Both onion and garlic are featured prominently in a collection of Babylonian recipes from Mesopotamia (ca. 1600), which is now kept at the University of Yale and known as “Yale Recipes”. The about 35 recipes written on three clay tablets show that onion and relatives were characteristic flavours of ancient Babylon: Onion (Akkadian šusikillu), leek (karšu, karašu) and garlic (hazanu) appear in almost every recipe, usually in mashed form to be stirred into the foods.
The collection also uses other spices, some of which are still named similar in modern Semitic tongues, so that the identification appears sound: mint (ninū), coriander (kisibirru), cumin (kamūnu), and dill (šibittu). Other spices mentioned are less easy to identify: egenguru (rocket, cress), šurmēnu (cupress cones, maybe comparable to juniper) and sibburratu (rue). A flavouring kasū appears very frequently; this has been identified as dodder (Cuscuta) by some scholars, but as mustard by others. Quite conspicously, imported spices are completely missing in these recipies.
In ancient India, onion (and also garlic) were very unpopular. They were considered impure and rarely eaten; Chinese travellers from the 7th century report that people eating onions had to live outside of the cities. Sanskrit names like nichabhojya [नीचभोज्य] “food for low people”, shudrapriya [शूद्रप्रिय] “dear to the Shudras (members of low caste)” and durgandha [दुर्गंध] “evil smelling”, testify to the low reputation of onions. The important position of onion and garlic in today's Indian cuisine developed only due to contact with Muslims in the last millennium. Yet, even today, some Brahmin communities (e.g., in Bengal) refuse to eat these odorous plants. Their cooking often uses asafetida in places where other Indian cooks would resort to onion.
In contemporary Indian cooking, onion is the basis of most sauces and gravies. Nearly every North Indian recipe starts with the same procedure: Fry chopped onions slowly, add spices (frequently fresh garlic and ginger and dried spices like coriander, cumin, nigella, turmeric, black cardamom, chiles) and fry until the onion turns golden. The mixture (wet masala) may afterwards be pureed, simmered with tomatoes or yoghurt, or just added to boiling vegetables or meat. It is part of the art of Indian cooking to estimate spice amounts in advance; if you take too much or too little, the error will become manifest only in the last phase of cooking, when corrections are difficult to make.
In the Imperial cuisine of Northern India (moghul cuisine, see black cumin), gravies are prepared in a similar way; yet aromatic spices (cinnamon, Indian bay-leaves and cloves) are used more lavishly at the cost of pungent chiles.
Gravies based on onion are prepared in another way in Burma, whose unique
situation between China, India and Thailand has given rise to a unique cuisine.
The dishes called “curries” in Burma are meat cubes or vegetables braised in a
rich spicy gravy prepared in advance: Onions, vinegar, garlic, fresh ginger, cumin, coriander and of
course chiles are blended to a smooth paste and
fried in sesame oil until the fat separates from
the gravy. By the long frying procedure, Burmese curries acquire a very
complex taste not easily found in the cuisines of other countries.
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| Inflorescence of Allium christophii (Persian onion) |
Pastes prepared by grinding onions together with a variety of spices are known in quite many countries. Since raw onions easily turn bitter, such pastes must be prepared fresh and used without much delay; alternatively, they can be preserved by adding some acid (e.g., vinegar or lemon juice). Indonesia displays a great variety of onion-based spice pastes (bumbu, see lemon grass); from the New World, Jamaican jerk is the most famous example (see allspice). Both concoctions are mostly used to marinate meat or fish.
By frying, onion changes its taste and turns more sweet and aromatic; the flavour develops best after long frying in comparatively cool fat (I prefer clarified butter ghee [घी], but this might be a personal preference). Fried onion rings are popular in Central Europe as a decoration, e.g., for German mashed potatoes, but they are also known in Vietnam and especially in Indonesia, where nasi goreng (fried rice, see galanga) is nearly always topped with them. After removal of the fat used for frying, they can be stored for several hours without losing their crisp texture, provided they are kept in an air-tight container.
Onions may also be dried, in which case they again change their flavour and turn more garlic-like. Onion powder is a rather popular spice in the South of the US and in México, and forms part of commercially available chile-con-carne spice mixtures (together with cumin, oregano, garlic, pepper and chiles). Dried onions are in important flavouring in Eritrean cuisine (see long pepper).
Shallots stem from a closely related plant, Allium ascalonicum. They are smaller and grow in clusters with up to five bulbs; their taste is somewhat finer and less pungent. Shallots are most popular in Northern France, where they are essential for sauces based on red wine. Contrasting the usage of ordinary onion, shallots are never fried (because the French believe them to turn bitter on frying), but mostly cooked or braised (e.g., for sauces made from red wine). Shallots are called for by the classic recipe sauce béarnaise (see tarragon).
Quite many Far Eastern cookbooks suggest using shallots instead of onions,
since the latter are closer to Asian onions both with respect to size and
flavour. Shallots are particularly suited to substitute onions in the
Indonesian spice paste bumbu (see lemon grass).
