Plant

Onion

Allium cepa

Also known as: Allium cepa, bulb onion

A biennial bulb-forming monocot in the genus Allium (alongside [[garlic]], leek, shallot, chive). Domesticated 5,000+ years ago in central Asia; documented in early Sumerian and Egyptian records. One of the most universally-used culinary ingredients on Earth — the foundation of soffritto, sofrito, mirepoix, masala, dashi-base, and roughly every other regional aromatic-base in world cuisine. Few crops match the onion's culinary ubiquity.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons — see source for license.

Scientific

Allium cepa is in Amaryllidaceae (the amaryllis family; Alliums were formerly placed in Liliaceae). The edible bulb is a modified leaf base; each “ring” of the cut onion is one of those swollen leaf bases stacked around a central stem.

The lachrymatory factor — what makes you cry when chopping onions — is syn-propanethial-S-oxide, produced when onion cells are damaged and a specific enzyme acts on a sulfur-containing precursor. The chemistry is well-characterized; the practical mitigation (cold onions, sharp knife, mouth breathing) targets the volatility of the compound.

Cultural

Sumerian cuneiform tablets list onion among the goods of the Mesopotamian agricultural economy. Egyptian tombs depicted onions as offerings and contained mummified examples. The Romans spread the species across their empire; by the medieval period, onion was foundational to European peasant cooking.

Every major cuisine tradition has a name for the onion-and-fat aromatic base: French mirepoix, Spanish sofrito, Italian soffritto, Cajun holy trinity (onion + [[pepper|bell pepper]] + celery), Indian tarka, West African épice base. The culinary universality is not coincidence — the species’ sulfur compounds and sugars caramelize into umami-rich flavors that almost no other plant produces in the same combination.

Global production

Top producers: India, China, Egypt, USA, Iran.

Sources

FAO Crop Statistics
Wikipedia — Onion

A plant entry in the 0mn1.one [[directory]].

What links here, and how

Inbound connections from across the wiki, grouped by lens and by relationship. These appear automatically — every entity page declares what it links to, and that data populates here on the targets.

Scientific

cousin of

Chives auto-linked from body mention
Leek auto-linked from body mention

shares approach with

Scallion both Allium kitchen staples; common onion (A. cepa) forms a bulb, scallion (A. fistulosum) does not
Shallot same species (Allium cepa); shallot is the multi-bulb cluster cultivar group, common onion the single-bulb group

Practical

produces

General

shares approach with

Tulip auto-linked via shared tag: bulb

14 inbound links · 7 outbound

Scientific

Cultural

Global production

See also

Sources

What links here, and how