The onion is believed to have originated in Egypt although it was known in very early times in India. In the former country it was worshiped as a deity. “Cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick” formed the daily food of the Israelites in Egypt. Italy and Spain are now noted for the immense size of the onions grown there, as also are the Bermuda Islands. Those of the latter place possess a far milder flavor, a condition due to soil and climate. The flavor of onion, when strong, is unpleasant to some people to a nauseating degree and it is hard to see in it any resemblance to its dainty cousins, the lily and the hyacinth. But when skillfully used it is a valuable and wholesome culinary condiment and is more largely employed by the average cook than the uninitiated ever suspect. Says one author: “The onion is the sheet anchor of the skillful cook. It is impossible to prepare the delicate Bordelaise sauce without resorting to the use of onions and a shade of garlic, ... and it is the judicious use of these two seasonings that stamps the expert cook.”
The leek is a member of the onion family, similar in flavor, although milder, and the leaves of which are flat instead of tubular. It has been stated that in England the leek was once considered to be the typical plant, both onion and garlic being but species. The diet of the soldiers of ancient Greece was at one time leeks and cheese, a custom which Bulwer has satirized in a Neo-Greek outburst of rhyme:
“Away, away, with the helm and greaves,
Away with the leeks and cheese!
I have conquered my passion for wounds and blows,
And the worst that I wish to the worst of my foes
Is the glory and gain
Of a year’s campaign
On a diet of leeks and cheese!”
Garlic possesses an onion-like bulb around which smaller bulbs cluster, the whole covered by a membranous outer layer. Each bulb is described as a “clove” of garlic and in flavor is far more demonstrative than onion. Shallot, on the contrary, is the daintiest of the onion tribe, growing from a cluster of roots and never forming a compact bulb.