An Allium to eat?

Jim McKenney jimmckenney@starpower.net
Wed, 02 Nov 2005 18:29:49 PST
Jim W, wrote " A common spring vegetable esp in NE China is called (perhaps 
locally)"One-Bulb Garlic"... Any name pop up?."

That's not much of a description to go on. But assuming it was not one of
the many forms of the Allium cepa (including A. ascalonicum), A. sativum or
A. fistulosum, it might be A. chinense, widely known by its Japanese name,
rakkyo. In Japan and Korea it's apparently eaten mostly pickled.

If you Google rakkyo, you'll discover that it is being promoted here and
there as a potentially valuable new crop in some western countries. 

The taste is described as a blend of onion and garlic, and one source
described it as "delightfully crisp" or something like that.  

Jim McKenney
Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where I'm amused by the
delicate hand older cookbooks insisted upon when using onions. One solution
in the days before WWII was to use onion juice; evidently refined people
could not face macroscopically perceptible pieces of onion in food. Does
anyone ever use onion juice now? 


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