Scallion

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spring onion
green onion
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Monocots
Order:	Asparagales
Family:	Alliaceae
Genus:	Allium
Species:	A. wakegi
Binomial name
Allium wakegi

Scallions as sold, with pointed tips removed

Chopped scallions

A scallion, (also known as a salad onion) is an edible plant the genus Allium. The upper green portion is hollow. It lacks a fully developed root bulb. They are milder than most onions. They may be cooked or used raw, as a part of salads or Asian recipes. Diced scallions are used in soup, noodle and seafood dishes. Eastern sauces commonly remove the bottom quarter-inch before use. Sometimes confused with green onion, or spring onion, which is the immature onion harvested in the spring before it develops into a mature onion.

The species most commonly associated with the name is the Welsh onion, Allium fistulosum. "Scallion" is sometimes used for Allium ascalonicum, better known as the shallot. The words scallion and shallot are related and can be traced back to the Greek askolonion as described by the Greek writer Theophrastus; this name, in turn, seems to originate from the Philistine town of Ascalon (modern-day Ashkelon in Israel). The shallots themselves apparently came from farther east.^[1]

Other names

Pajori, a Korean salad of spicy seasoned scallions

Scallions have various common names throughout the world. In some countries, green onions are mistakenly called shallots by non gardeners, and shallots are referred to by alternative names such as eschallot or eschalotte.

• Austria: Known as "Frühlingszwiebel", which means 'spring onion'.
• Australia and New Zealand: The common name is 'spring onion', although Sydneysiders often call them "shallots".
• Canada: Known as green onion.
• India: They may be referred to as spring onions.
• Japan: Known as 分葱 or ワケギ in Japanese (the Japanese transliteration, "wakegi", is another term for spring onions).
• Scotland: known in Scots as cibies, from the French syboe.
• Republic of Ireland: The term scallions is commonly used.
• United Kingdom and some Commonwealth countries, including Singapore: The most common name is spring onion. In Wales, they are uncommonly referred to as gibbons (pronounced jib-uns), in Northern Ireland the name scallion is preferred.
• United States: scallion or green onion. The term green onion is also be used in reference to immature specimens of the ordinary onion (Allium cepa).

Varieties

White Lisbon (Allium cepa)
White Lisbon Winter Hardy (Allium cepa)- an extra-hardy variety for overwintering.
Parade (Allium fistulosum)
Performer (Allium fistulosum)

Escallion

The escallion (Allium ascalonicum L.,^[2] pronounced scallion with its silent e) is a culinary herb. Grown in Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago, it is similar in appearance to the scallion, Welsh onion and leek, though said by Jamaicans to be more flavorful. Like these others, it is a (relatively) mild onion that does not form a large bulb.

The Jamaican name is probably a variant of scallion, the term used loosely for the spring onion, the leek, the shallot and the green stalk of the immature garden onion (Allium cepa). The spelling escalion is recorded in the eighteenth century; scallion is older, dating from the fourteenth century. The spring onion is sometimes know as eschallot. However, the OED's reference to escalions in Phillip H. Gosse's Birds of Jamaica (1847) implies that Gosse knew the shallot and the escalion to be different herbs, and this article accepts that authority.^[3] The term escallion is now not current in English outside its Jamaican usage.

Escallion is an ingredient in Jamaican cuisine, in combination with thyme, scotch bonnet pepper, garlic and allspice (called pimento). Recipes with escallion sometimes suggest leek as a substitute in salads. Jamaican dried spice mixtures using escallion are available commercially. Fresh escallion is rare and expensive outside Jamaica.

References

1. ^ Allium Crop Science: recent advances at Google Books, last retrieved 2007-03-31
2. ^ On-farm research for the development and promotion of improved agroforestry systems for steeplands in the Caribbean - page 12 shows classification of escallion.
3. ^ Oxford English Dictionary

See also

• Leek
• Allium tricoccum

External links

• Varieties of Japanese negi