One thing you’re bound to see at the allotment is plenty of onions, but do you really ‘know your onions’? (a phrase which dates from the 1920’s apparently…).
Cultivated onions were actually brought over to this country by the Romans and the name probably came from the Latin ‘unio’. However the Anglo Saxons called an onion ‘cipe’ which is related to our modern day ‘chives’.
Onions were actually worshipped by the Egyptians two and a half thousand years before the Romans (along with cabbage apparently!). The Egyptians saw eternal life in the anatomy of the onion because of its structure of circles inside circles. Paintings of onions appear on the inner walls of the pyramids and in the tombs. The onion was used as a funeral offering and onions are depicted on banquet tables and shown upon the altars of the gods. They have also been found actually in the mummies themselves.
In Pompeii Pliny the Elder wrote about the onion and cabbage patches in Pompeii and Roman beliefs regarding the efficacy of onions in amongst other things curing vision, inducing sleep and healing mouth sores and dog bites not to mention helping with dysentery and toothache (what more do you want?) Today too onions are associated with antiseptic and health giving properties. Romans would bring onions with them on their journeys to the provinces such as Britain, where they have been continually used to the present day.
Dioscorides, a Greek physician in the first century A.D., noted several medicinal uses of onions. The Greeks used onions to fortify athletes for the Olympic Games and athletes would consume pounds of onions, drink onion juice and rub onions on their bodies before the games started.
So, we’re not suggesting like the Ancient Greeks you also rub onion juice on yourself before the physical efforts involved in growing vegetables, but just be happy you’re continuing a very longstanding activity!
Anne Holland
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