Who invented onions

Onions prevented thirst and could be dried and preserved for later consumption when food might be scarce. Tips Sustainability: Onion Power Contact. Follow Us. Search this website. We use cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website.

There are two schools of thoughts regarding the home of onion cultivation, and both look at the period 5, years ago in Asia. Some scientists believe that onion was first domesticated in central Asia and others in Middle East by Babylonian culture in Iran and West Pakistan. Those are of course based on ancient remnants of food cultivation that survived the tooth of time, but many believe that organized cultivation started much earlier, thousands of years before writing and sophisticated tools were created.

Onions were grown in Ancient Egypt 5, years ago, in India and China 5, years ago, in Sumeria 4, years ago.

With organized onion cultivation starting around 3, BC, ancient civilizations that used them soon became really dependent on this great vegetable. Onions were easy to grow on any kind of soil, any type of weather ecosystem, and were easy to store, dry, and preserve during winters.

The basic abilities of onion also proved to be very useful to Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindu and ancient Chinese civilizations who had problems to create large sources of food — onions prevented thirst, were great source of energy, had very useful medicinal properties, and could be easily dried and preserved for times when other perishable sources of food were scarce. King Ramses IV, who died in B. Other Egyptologists believe it was because onions were known for their strong antiseptic qualities, which construed as magical, would be handy in the afterlife.

Onions are mentioned to have been eaten by the Israelites in the Bible. In Numbers , the children of Israel lament the meager desert diet enforced by the Exodus: "We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic.

In India as early as the sixth century B. Likewise, Dioscorides, a Greek physician in first century A. The Greeks used onions to fortify athletes for the Olympic Games. Before competition, athletes would consume pounds of onions, drink onion juice and rub onions on their bodies. The Romans ate onions regularly and carried them on journeys to their provinces in England and Germany.

Pliny the Elder, Roman's keen-eyed observer, wrote of Pompeii's onions and cabbages. Before he was overcome and killed by the volcano's heat and fumes, Pliny the Elder catalogued the Roman beliefs about the efficacy of the onion to cure vision, induce sleep, heal mouth sores, dog bites, toothaches, dysentery and lumbago.

Excavators of the doomed city would later find gardens where, just as Pliny had said, onions had grown. The bulbs had left behind telltale cavities in the ground. The Roman gourmet Apicius, credited with writing one of the first cookbooks which dates to the eighth and ninth centuries , included many references to onions.

By the Middle Ages, the three main vegetables of European cuisine were beans, cabbage and onions.