Onions! Those Incredible Vegetables! Benefits for health as well as history
Soups, stews, fries, salads, BBQs, curry, Japanese noodles…… almost all dishes would taste less without onions. All features of onions are indispensable for cooking: the sweetness and brown color of the caramelized ones, tender texture of the simmered ones, and crispy texture, vivid colors and stimulant taste and flavor of the raw ones. If you have to cook without onions, the taste of the dishes could probably lack attractiveness.
The vegetables of the onion family, which are both long (or green) and round, are called ‘negi’ in Japanese contrary to the variety of English names like onions, leeks, shallots, scallions and chives.
History
It is still unclear where the wild species of original onion came from but many archeologists and botanists believe that they were from central Asia. The bulb onions were domesticated and cultivated first about seven thousand years ago in a place that is in Iran and Pakistan now. And there was a record that long onions were grown on farms in the former Han dynasty of China around 200 B.C..
The long onions reached Japan from China in the eighth century. Since then they have diverged in different regions of Japan and have developed into many varieties, which roughly can be divided into thin and green ones in the western regions and thick and white ones in the eastern regions. The green ones are often used raw as garnish and flavors, and the white ones are used as one of the ingredients of fries, one-pot meals and various other dishes and meals.
The bulb onions came to Japan at the end of the Edo period, middle of 19th century, and they were experimentally planted in Sapporo Agricultural School in the 1870s, which was the predecessor of the present Hokkaido University. In the 1880s bulb onion farming started spreading and in the following four or five decades it became one of the common crops.
The recent annual amount of bulb onion production in Japan has been more than one million metric tons, and Hokkaido produces the most and shares 63 % (to the stats of 2019). Most of them are yellow onions which have been introduced in the US. Shallots with red peel are rarely seen.
Western Cookery and Onions in Japan
As the country opened in the Meiji period, in the later of the 19th century, Japanese people encountered various cuisines of the world, especially of western countries: at the beginning of the period, being driven by the urgent necessity of modernization, the Meiji government directly recruited and hired people in western countries like the UK, the US, Germany, France etc. to teachers, engineers, instructors, technocrats, etc. as well as sent many Japanese elites to those countries to acquire advanced technology and knowledge. International trading also was gradually developing and many foreigners stayed in big cities of Japan for business.
The more popular western cookery like, fry, stew, cutlet, and saute became, the more recognised that vegetables like bulb onions, potatoes, carrots and tomatoes were among people as well as farmers. Curry and rice have become so-called a national Japanese meal, which originated as a British-style meal using roux and spices, while it was far different from Indian authentic one.
At the beginning of the 20th century, domestically produced curry powder was available for the first time. Since then curry and rice have become popular meals in many Japanese households and curry has also been adopted to traditional Japanese cuisine such as soba or udon noodles. After WW2 many food brands made and provided various curry related products, e.g. curry powder, roux pastes, pre cooked and pouched roux, instant noodles and snacks with curry taste, etc..
Health benefits, and ancient remedial uses
When you slice or chop onions, you know that the strong smells and stimuli cause the tears to run down. That is troublesome but beneficial: the pungent smell is from the compounds named ‘allyl sulfide’ and it may work as an inhibitor of cholesterol, clots, and high blood pressure. Recent research has proved that the rich vitamins and compounds of onions can reduce the risk of cancer.
Ancient people also believed that onions had remedial power and purified human blood. Ancient Greek athletes ate a lot of onions and massaged their muscles with onion juice. In ancient Egypt, people thought that the many layers of onions were a symbol of eternity. They put onions in various places of the body when they mummified and buried it.
Others
As I see a lot of cooking channels on YouTube, I found there are slightly different ways of caramelizing onions for the base of stew or curry: A.fry only onions, B. add a pinch of salt to onions and heat them up, C. add a little water and salt to onions and heat them up,and D. sliced or diced onions are once frozen before heating.
The way of A can draw water and sugar 100% from onions. I think the taste is the best of those four ways. But it takes longer and you have to watch and stir all the time to avoid burning. B and C are timesaving ways because adding a little salt makes juice leak out sooner. Adding water is a smart way to avoid burning. When you want to cook a lot of onions, those two ways are reasonable and practical. The way of D means to break onions’ cells and make it easy to leak the juice out.
Always incredible vegetables
Onions. such incredible vegetables! They have a long shelf life, reasonable prices and the origin of energy and remedial power. Their aroma, sweetness and pungency definitely add enjoyable tastes, flavors and textures to our meals. I can’t imagine everyday meals without them.
I hope that more varieties of bulb onions are cultivated and available in Japan.
References
https://www.onions-usa.org/all-about-onions/history-of-onions/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion
https://www.theclassroom.com/onions-ancient-egypt-13802.html
https://www.savorysuitcase.com/the-historical-significance-of-green-onions-in-culinary-traditions/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allium_giganteum
Some of my favorite cooking channels
https://www.youtube.com/@GlenAndFriendsCooking
https://www.youtube.com/@townsends
https://www.youtube.com/@suijiba
https://www.youtube.com/@TastingHistory
https://www.youtube.com/@indocurryko