Melissa Clark's Crash Course on Alliums

[weinoo]

Melissa Clark, she of the recipes everyone loves, writes a nice primer on various (but not all, by any means) alliums, for the NY Times' food section.

 

Know Your Onions....

 

Quote

 

You may dote on your garlic, adore your onions, worship your shallots, but do you really know the difference between a spring onion and a scallion? A ramp and a ramson? A Welsh onion and a leek?

 

The base of countless dishes across nearly every cuisine, alliums are an essential kitchen staple. But they’re also bewildering, with unfixed and overlapping designations that can be difficult for even professionals to classify. (“Allium,” the Latin word for garlic, refers to a genus of plants that includes hundreds of species edible and decorative and sometimes both.)

 

 

[rotuts]

one of the better NYimes pieces.