Onion

Onions can and are used in just about any dish for the Thai table. You can never be sure where they’ll show up. Thai onions are rather sweet compared to most other kinds around the world. This leaves it up to the garlic and other spices to add zest to a dish. One of the curious things about onions in Thai cuisine is that they are the one vegetable that is prohibited during the annual vegetarian festival observed among members many of Thailand’s Chinese community. True observants of the festival must abstain from the consumption of all types of onions, including shallots and garlic. Nobody seems to know the reasoning for this rule.

Onions
Onions on sale in the market.

Onions are among the most ancient of cultivated vegetables. No one is quite sure when or where they were first cultivated. They were mentioned in first dynasty Egyptian texts dating back to 3200 B.C. In later years, we know that bread, beer and onions were the important rations to the highly valued artisans who decorated the tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

Although Egypt was the first to record onions, many think that cultivation first began in ancient Iran and Pakistan. One of the reasons it’s hard to know for sure is that there are hundreds of varieties of wild onions spread throughout temperate climates all around the world.