THE ONION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3774, 21 September 1907, Page 4

THE ONION.

Bom of the lily family probably in Asia in the far-off centuries, the onion grows all over the world. It was well known to the ancient Greeks and Romans. It is mentioned in ancient Egyptian writings and in the Pentateuch. When the Israelites in the wilderness grew weary of manna they sighed for the good things they had left behind, and they distressed Moses when they lifted their voices ii. weeping and cried : “ We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely ; the cucumber and the melon, and the leeks and the onions, and the garlic ; but now our soul is dried away ; there is nothing at all, besides this manna, before our eye.” It was not so much the flesh pots of Egypt that they sighed for ss the succulent leek, the pungent onion, the odorous garlic. The onion is the Wels ( h national emblem. In Spain and Italy garlic, which is merely a condensed onion, enters into nearly all dishes of both the rich and poor. The onion thrives in Siberia and in Honduras. It flourishes on the Nile and on the Mississippi. It was a with the Ptolemies, of ancient Egypt, and it finds favour with the highest and the lowest. The Lady of Shalot died of a broken heart because she bad to give up either onions or her lover. Her lover was one of those finnicky fellows who object to the odour of onions, and she would not give up the shalot. The onion is all right. It never seeks to conceal itself. It is about the only thing in hash in which one can have confidence.