Welsh Onion

Welsh onions (Allium fistulosum) are bunching onions that are native to China.  They are grown for their tasty hollow leaves and do not form bulbs. There are numerous cultivars in a variety of sizes. Welsh onions are widely used in Asian cuisines. Welsh onions were imported into the Mediterranean region in antiquity. They might be the “cibols” which in about 800 AD the emperor Charlemagne required his managers to grow at each of his imperial estates. Welsh onions were certainly growing in Paris in 1220 AD.

It is frequently asserted that Welsh onions were introduced into England from Germany in 1629. At that time they bore the old German name “welsche” meaning foreign. It is possibly that Welsh onions were first imported into England earlier from Flanders. Throughout the late Middle Ages English wool was shipped in large quantities to Flanders where it was spun into cloth. On the return voyages ships might be laden with wine, preserved fish, and seasonal vegetables. The vegetables were popular with residents in the port cities, but only slowly established in the agriculture of rural England. Much of the English wool trade was conducted with the coastal cities of Flanders where the inhabitants spoke localized versions of Middle Dutch. These inhabitants referred to the French-speakers in the south of Flanders and indeed to all the French as “Walsh”. So if Charlamagne’s cibols were shipped from Flanders to England they would have been Walsh onions.

Regardless of which origin story you choose to believe, Welsh onions in a garden are always good for generating a lively horticultural or culinary conversation.

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