Do you know your onions? From large, sweet onions to shallots, garlic, chives and leeks, the allium family contains some of the most popular vegetables in the world. Shy of the spotlight - except when repelling vampires, preserving mummies, curing heart disease or predicting the future - this lowly yet universal family of plants has been a friend to mankind from earliest times. Martha Jay traces the history of garlic and onions back to the earliest civilizations of the Fertile Crescent and the recipes of ancient Mesopotamia. Traders spread onion varieties through Central Asia and from there they moved across the world, as civilizations from the ancient Romans and Greeks to the Koreans and Japanese found this humble family of vegetables an indispensable part of their cuisines - and of their culture. Garlic has long been identified as a magical herb with supernatural origins. Onions symbolized the simple peasant life to French painters of the 19th century, while the Welsh have proudly adopted the leek as their national symbol.
