Saturday, August 02, 2008

History of Onion

History of Onion
If a person eats half of raw onion every day, the good HDL will goes up 30%. Onions increase blood circulation and good for reducing blood pressure. Onion usually refers to Allium cepa. Allium cepa is one of the oldest vegetable known. It’s a large family containing 500 species.

It has been used as a food source for millennia. Onion is a native to South Asia and is widely used in Indian cooking.

Most researches agreed that the onion has been cultivated for 5000 years. It grew in Chinese gardens as early as that time.

Apart from using as a currency to pay the workers who built the pyramids, Ancient Egypt 3500 B.C worshipped the onion and believed that its spherical shape symbolized the eternal life. Painting of onions appears on the walls of the pyramids and in tombs of both the old Kingdom and the new Kingdom.

King Ramses IV, who died in 1160 B.C, was entombed with onions in his eye sockets. Egyptian believed that onion strong scent would prompt the dead to breathe again. Sumerians also believed to have grown the onions since 2500 B.C in their farm.

In middle ages, onion became one of European three main cuisines (beans, cabbage and onion). It was the Roma who introduced the onion to Europe. The Latin name unio was to describe a species of onion resembling a single white pearl. At that time, in American native was using wild onions in syrups, in dyes even in toys. They also ate as a raw.

History of Onion

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