Onions

Edible vegetables whose bulbs have a pungent and sharp flavour. Onions were evidently well-known at least to the Hobbits, though we hear about them only indirectly. When Samwise Gamgee set about stewing rabbits in the woodlands of Ithilien, he bemoaned the fact that he had no onions or potatoes for his stew. So, clearly the Hobbits of the Shire not only grew onions (and potatoes) but commonly used them in their cooking.

Notes

The more usual Latin word for an onion was cepa, but the vegetable was also known colloquially as an unionem (a word related to 'union' or 'unity', because the onion had a single bulb, whereas similar vegetables were made up of separate segments or parts). This less formal name found its way into Old French, and hence through many variations to modern English 'onion'.

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Updated 17 November 2024
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Onions

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